Zetawatt Equivalent Ultrashort laser pulse System (ZEUS) - Laser construction*

The National Science Foundation-funded Zetawatt Equivalent Ultrashort laser pulse System (ZEUS) is due for completion in 2024. Parts of the facility are currently undergoing commissioning and will provide for the first year of user experiments in 2023. The 1.5J front-end of the ZEUS laser chain is an Amplitude Lasers Pulsar that incorporates double Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA), three programmable phase/amplitude devices, and Cross-Polarization Wave (XPW) modulation to enhance contrast. Its pulses are isolated from experimental interactions with additional Pockels cells, boosted to 9J in a home-built amplifier, and directed through a vacuum-based compressor. The measured 26fs pulse duration and compressor efficiency of ~70% show power on the order of 200TW, which will be capable of burst-mode operation at 1Hz or 5Hz. Using these pulses, an in-house commissioning experiment yielded electron beams with energies up to 400MeV and with 2mrad divergence. We will report on further commissioning results, give a roadmap for the first year of operation with shots up to 1PW, and note the remaining steps to full 3PW operation in 2024.