Spanish Pulsed Lasers Center CLPU launches the Primer llamado para acceso al VEGA-2
The Spanish Pulsed Lasers Centre (CLPU, Centro de Láseres Pulsados) is an international user facility devoted to ultrafast ultraintense lasers. CLPU is located at Villamayor, Salamanca (in the Castilla and Leon Region) 200 km West of Madrid. It is part of the implementation of the Spanish Roadmap of Unique Scientific and Technical Facilities (ICTS). CLPU is open to domestic and international users on the basis of competitive access. The main equipment of CLPU is the VEGA laser, a Ti:Sapphire CPA laser.
VEGA-2 did last year successful commissioning experiments, and so CLPU is proud to launch the first call for VEGA-2 competitive access. CLPU offers 100 shifts (working days) of access during the period October 2017 to October 2018.
CLPU invites groups working in the fields of plasma physics, extreme matter physics, laser-particle acceleration, atomic physics, … to submit research proposals for beam time at the VEGA-2 laser. Those proposals will be scientifically evaluated by an Access Committee, with participation of highly recognized experts external to CLPU.
Proposals can be submitted now until the complete allocation of the shifts. The first selection of the Access Committee will be made with the proposals received until June 30th (three months after the opening of the call).
VEGA-2 is a 30 fs, 200-class laser (800 nm), and it is open for wakefield acceleration, warm dense matter, betatron radiation, proton acceleration, … experiments, with a basic set of detectors that is continuously growing. Details on the system appear at the formal call available from website www.clpu.es.
Proposals must be submitted through the web tool FARO submission users are encouraged to contact CLPU for more detailed explanation of the VEGA system and the possible experimental setups. In particular Luca Volpe (Este endereço de email está protegido contra piratas. Necessita ativar o JavaScript para o visualizar.), director of the CLPU chair at the University of Salamanca, will be assisting with this information.
VEGA-3, the Spanish PW is now with commissioning experiments and soon will be also open to competitive access.