CLF (Oxfordshire, UK)

Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC

The CLF offers access to four unique laser facilities for multi-disciplinary research with another two facilities under construction.

  • VULCAN is currently undergoing an upgrade to increase its peak power an energy. The new system Vulcan 20-20 will deliver 20PW beamline and up to 20 KJ of energy across multiple beams to two experimental areas , expected to be operational by 2029 .
  • GEMINI offers a unique synchronised dual beam capability with 0.5 PW beams operating at one shot every 20 seconds, focussing on plasma accelerators and the generation and application of secondary sources.
    ARTEMIS has three beamlines utilising HHG, at 1 kHz/800 nm/200 eV and 100 kHz/1700 nm/1 keV (due online shortly), with a wide suite of end stations for pump-probe experiments in ultrafast XUV science.
  • ULTRA is an ultrafast pump-probe laser spectroscopy facility, combining laser, detector and sample manipulation technology to probe ultrafast molecular dynamics.
  • OCTOPUS: a suite of imaging and laser trapping capabilities, such as super-resolution (including cryogenic), confocal, and light sheet microscopy, single molecule imaging/tracking, and focused ion beam SEM.
  • Extreme Photonics Applications Centre (EPAC) is a new facility under construction at the CLF and expected to be operational in 2027. EPAC will deliver a 1 PW beam operating at 10 Hz, designed to develop novel, laser-based accelerators and particle sources.

Website: www.clf.stfc.ac.uk

Contact:
Gemini: Rajeev Pattathil
Artemis: Emma Springate
Octopus: Marisa Martin-Fernandez
Ultra: Greg Greetham

Research highlights
Vulcan
  • Laboratory Astrophysics: Characterization of the bulk properties of compressible turbulence in a super-Alfvénic plasma was performed on the Vulcan Laser [Nat. Commun. 10, 1758 (2019)].
  • Electromagnetic pulses: Using the Vulcan laser at the Central Laser Facility, the record for the highest energy in a single pulse of terahertz radiation has been achieved in the laboratory [PNAS 116, 3994 (2019)].
Gemini
  • Quantum Electrodynamics: Users of the Gemini facility collided a high intensity laser pulse with a multi-GeV electron beam to study the dynamics of electrons in strong fields, providing evidence of radiation reaction energy loss [Phys. Rev. X 8, 011020 (2018)] [Phys. Rev. X 8, 031004 (2018)].
  • X-ray imaging: Gemini experiments have demonstrated the suitability of the laser-betatron radiation produced in laser-wakefield accelerators to conduct radiography and tomography for medical and industrial applications [PNAS 115, 6335 (2018)] [NIMA 983, 164369 (2020)].
Artemis
  • Condensed matter physics: The combination of  XUV photon energy and femtosecond time-resolution on Artemis enables studies of ultrafast electron dynamics across the full Brillouin zone in condensed matter, using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Recent work extended this technique to a high temperature superconductor, where we observed transient emergence of quasiparticles at the antinodes [Science Advances 4, eear1998 (2018)].
  • Coherent lens-less imaging with high harmonics: The spatial coherence of extreme ultraviolet pulses produced through high harmonic generation enables them to be applied to coherent lensless imaging techniques with high spatial resolution. Recent measurements on Artemis enabled a biological sample to be imaged over a wide area with 80-nanometre resolution. [Science Advances 6, eeaz3025 (2020)].
Octopus
  • Antimicrobial resistance: Super-resolution microscopy techniques have been used to study the uptake and mode of action of potential new antimicrobial drugs by bacteria [Chem. Sci. 11, 8828 (2020)].
  • Cancer Research: Single molecule and super-resolution microscopy techniques have revealed the molecular architecture of signalling molecules in cells, and identified structural differences in mutants involved in cancer [Nat. Commun. 9, 4325 (2018)].
Ultra
  • Catalysis: Kerr-gate Raman spectroscopy has allowed the identification of contaminants responsible for the deactivation of zeolite catalysts [Nature Materials 19, 1081 (2020)].
  • Charge flow in organic semiconductors: Organic semiconductors & molecular wires have many emerging applications, e.g. display devices in mobile phones, in photovoltaic solar cells, and potentially in restorative medicine. Work on Ultra has provided fundamental insights into the mechanisms of charge transport, useful in guiding the design of better materials [Chem. Sci. 11, 2112 (2020)].
Expertise

Vulcan is currently being upgraded to deliver a single 20 PW beam and up to 20 kJ of energy delivered in multiple beams with flexible configurations into tow experimental areas. The research areas will include fusion energy, electron and ion acceleration, laboratory astrophysics and plasma physics.

Gemini offers two independent beams of up to 500 TW in flexible configurations. Research includes investigations of new LWFA and channelling schemes, trialling new beam configurations and targetry. LWFA can also be used for production of intense radiation sources such as x-rays, positrons, and muons. Proof of principle demonstrations of hard x-ray tomography have shown their wide range of applicability from high resolution biological imaging to penetrative flash radiography of large dense object.

Artemis is based on high repetition rate, few optical cycle and widely tuneable laser sources, and ultrafast XUV (10-100’s eV) pulses produced through high harmonic generation. Vacuum beamlines deliver the synchronised pulses to end-stations for condensed matter physics and gas-phase chemistry. Experiments on Artemis use high harmonic generation to investigate ultrafast dynamics in experiments on gas and solid materials using photoelectron spectroscopy. We also exploit the spatial coherence of the XUV to use coherent diffractive imaging techniques.

Octopus offers a range of imaging techniques including several modes of multidimensional single molecule microscopy (particle kinetics and dynamics in live cells via single particle tracking colocalisation, single particle FRET and single particle polarisation, and structure determination in fixed cells – at 5-20 nm resolution via fluorescence localisation with photobleaching (FLimP)), super-resolution microscopy (STORM, PALM, SIM, STED), and confocal microscopy (FLIM, FRET, and multiphoton). Optical Tweezers is another technique that OCTOPUS provides.

Ultra is a word-class time-resolved (pump-probe) spectroscopy facility. Ultra offers a wide range of spectroscopy techniques including transient absorption, 2D-IR, femtosecond stimulated Raman, IR-vis sum frequency generation, Kerr-gated fluorescence, Kerr-gated Raman, Time resolved IR absorption, Time-Resolved Resonance Raman, and Time-Resolved Multiple-Probe spectroscopy (TRmPS).

Services for industry
Chemical industry

Characterisation: Expertise in a wide range of spectroscopic techniques for materials characterisation, particular time resolved and high resolution spectroscopic techniques. For example, these techniques are used to study catalysts in the chemical industry to develop new sustainable approaches for crop protection.

Medical and pharma industry (drug discovery)

Microscopy: Expertise in a wide variety of biological imaging modalities ranging from the molecular to cellular level. This has been applied to study the therapeutic action and efficacy of a potential new drug in killing cancer and immortalised cells and exploring photodynamic therapy effects in collaboration with a pharmaceutical company.

Food industry

Testing / Characterisation: Expertise in exploring the use of laser based characterisation techniques to provide enhanced quality control, inspection and testing during manufacturing. A food company worked with CLF to demonstrated the power of multispectral imaging for improved quality screening and reduce manufacturing costs.

Security / Defence

Technology development: Expertise in developing novel laser based approaches to complex analytical challenges. e.g. a collaboration between CLF and the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) is exploring novel techniques for stand-off and through-barrier inspection using laser-driven X-ray analysis.

Equipment offered to external users
Target Fabrication Facility

The Target Fabrication group has access to a wide range of facilities that are able to fabricate the most complex of targets for both the TAP and TAW high power experimental areas and also the Gemini high repetition rate area. Through rigorous planning procedures that are ISO9001:2008 compatible we aim to deliver the highest quality targets in time for your experiment and to provide the flexibility during an experimental run that allow the maximisation of the time available on the facilities.

Current Target Fabrication Capabilities include: Thin Film Coating, Micromachining, Low Density Materials, High  Rep-rate technologies, Characterisation, MEMS Fabrication, Gas Targetry and Cryogenic Targetry.

Vulcan

This facility is undergoing a major upgrade and is expected to be back online in 2029.

Gemini

Gemini is a versatile area with a large target chamber that can be configured for the various beam arrangements required. The North and South beams enter the area from above and are steered onto f/20 (3m focal length), f/40 (6m focal length), or f/2 (30cm focal length) parabolic mirrors with the smallest focal spot being about 2 microns, producing an intensity up to 2 x 1021W cm-2.

To achieve very high contrast, the North beam has the option of a passing through a double plasma mirror system consisting of two f/7 parabolic mirrors focusing onto a pair of anti-reflection coated substrates.

Adaptive optics are available for optimising the quality of the laser focal spot.

A range of plasma diagnostics is available for experimental users

EPAC

This new facility will be online in 2027.

Artemis

Artemis provides ultrafast ​laser sources, three XUV beamlines, and end-stations for atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter physics and imaging. ​​

The Artemis facility is undergoing a major transformation and will upgrade end-stations and lasers by 2027. The current laser sources​ are.

  • High average power Ti:sapphire laser system (twin 8 mJ, 30 fs pulses at 1 kHz).
  • Few-cycle laser pulses: 12 fs pulses at 1800 nm with 0.4 mJ/pulse at 1 kHz.
  • Tuneable pulses from 235 nm to 15 micron at 1 kHz.
  • 100 kHz IR system, with outputs at 1700 nm and 3000 nm.

The three XUV beamlines are:

  • Tuneable XUV beamline, with monochromator providing isolated, short-pulse (10-50 fs) harmonics in the energy region 12-80 eV
  • XUV imaging beamline with flatfield spectrometer, filters and multilayer mirrors, for experiments requiring higher XUV flux.
  • Beamline for 100 kHz XUV pulses, with monochromator providing isolated, short-pulse (~60 fs) harmonics in the energy region 18-45 eV.

Artemis has a variety of vacuum end-stations, including:

  • Time- and angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) chamber for condensed matter physics
  • AMO chamber with velocity-map imaging, electron time-of-flight detector, and gas sources
Ultra

Ti:Sapphire and Yb:doped chirped pulse amplifiers capable of producing fs and/or ps pulses. The ULTRA facility is undergoing major transformation, as the new HiLUX project with introduce new multiple synchronised high power ytterbium lasers, providing a range of OPA outputs, UV – IR, for pump probe and non-linear spectroscopy techniques to the facility. This is expected to come on-line before the end of 2027.

  • 2 x Light Conversion Pharos laser (LIFEtime): 100 kHz dual synchronised Yb:doped lasers 1030 nm, ~200 fs outputs, providing 0.07 and 0.15 mJ pulses. Harmonics 515, 343, 257, 206 nm.
  • Coherent Legend Elite with Cryo PA: 10 kHz Ti:Sapphire 800 nm, 40 fs 2 mJ pulses driving dual optical parametric amplifiers with difference frequency mixing.
  • Optical Parametric Amplifiers (OPA, Light Conversion TOPAS and Orpheus) provide access to a range of tunable pump-probe configurations (190-20000 nm), allowing access to techniques such as pump-dump and transient 2D-IR (UV-vis pump, IR pump) spectroscopy. The OPAs include a short pulse Non-collinear Parametric Amplifier (NOPA, Light Conversion TOPAS-White).
  • Broadband probes include White Light Continuum (WLC) generation in UV near IR from 330-1600 nm and OPA Difference Frequency Generation (DFG) with > 300 cm-1 bandwidth in mid infrared from 800-4000 cm-1.
Supplementary lasers
  • 1-20 kHz pulsed nanosecond laser (Innolas or Wedge Laser): 1064 nm with 0.8 ns pulse. Active Q-switch with <0.5 ns jitter. Provides extended pump – probe delays from 1 ns-1 ms i.e. beyond the range of optical delay lines. Harmonic 532, 355, 266, 213 nm with several microjoules energy per pulse.
  • kHz pulsed nanosecond laser (Wedge): 1064 nm, 4 mJ output energy with 1 ns pulse and active Q-switch  <0.5 ns jitter.  This laser pumps a PPLN OPO to generate IR light in the 2100 to 3800 nm spectral region with >50 µJ energy per pulse. Can also be used to generate harmonics for pumping, at 355/532 nm.
 Octopus

The Octopus facility supports and develops the latest microscopy techniques to enable successful applicants to perform complex studies in the areas of biological, chemical, environmental and materials science. A comprehensive range of laser-based imaging techniques and sample handling are supported.