Pulse contrast enhancement at the Orion laser facility

The Orion laser facility provides a capability for performing high energy density plasma physics experiments at AWE. The laser consists of ten long pulse (nanosecond) beam lines delivering a total of 5 kJ at 351 nm with 0.1-5 ns temporally shaped pulses and two short pulse Petawatt beam lines, each producing 500 J in 0.5 ps with intensities to target > 10 21 W/cm 2 . The short pulse beam architecture is that of an OPCPA (optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier).