Applications of High-Field and Short Wavelength Sources, 1998

The Optical Society of America Conference on Applications of High Fields and Short Wavelength Sources, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, from March 20-22, 1997, was an exceptionally exciting conference. This conference was the seventh in a series of topical con­ ferences, held every two years, which are devoted to the generation and application of high field and short wavelength sources. The meeting was truly international in scope, with equal participation from both within and outside of the US. In the past two years, there has been dramatic progress in both laser and x-ray coher­ ent sources, both fundamental and applied. The 1997 meeting highlighted these advances, which are summarized in sections 1 and 2 of this volume. Terawatt-class lasers are now avail­ able in the UV or at high repetition rates. Michael Perry (LLNL) presented a keynote talk on petawatt class lasers and their applications in inertial confinement fusion, while Jorge Rocca (Colorado State University) presented a keynote talk on tabletop soft-x-ray lasers. Genera­ tion and measurement techniques are becoming very sophisticated throughout the UV and x­ ray region of the spectrum, and coherent sources have been extended to wavelengths below 30A. Phase control in the x-ray region is also now possible, and new phase-matching schemes in the UV have been experimentally demonstrated. It is clear that a new field of x-ray nonlin­ ear optics will deveiop rapidly over the next few years.

High-Power Laser Sources: Design and Performance of the Petawatt Laser; M.D. Perry, et al. Multiterawatt Ultraviolet Lasers; F.G. Omenetto, et al. Ultrafast Coherent UV and X-Ray Sources: Saturated Table-Top Soft X-Ray Lasers by Discharge Excitation; J.J. Rocca, et al. Phase-Locking of High-Order Harmonics to the Fundamental Field; M.B. Gaarde, et al. Novel Short Wavelength Sources: Accelerator Based Source Development: Higher, Wider and Shorter; E.D. Johnson. A Debrisless Laser-Plasma Source for EUV and XUV Generation; C.M. DePriest, et al. Ultrashort-Pulse Laser Plasma Interactions: Plasma Waveguide; Density Development and High Intensity Guiding; T.R. Clark, et al. Explosion of Atomic Clusters Heated by High Intensity, Femtosecond Laser Pulses; T. Ditmire, et al. Strong Field Interactions: Barrier-Suppression Ionization of Complex Atoms and Diatomic Molecules; V.P. Krainov. Relativistically Self-Guided Laser Wakefield Acceleration; R. Wagner, D. Umstadter. Applications of Short Wavelength Sources: Femtosecond Harmonic Laser Photoemission: Physics and Chemistry; R.A. Haight. 35 Additional Articles. Index.