Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) is a national user facility with state-of-the-art lasers located at the INRS. ALLS provides the research community with the unique laser sources that are necessary to perform the most advanced and cutting-edge science. Two examples of such research at ALLS are the Extreme Terahertz (THz) project and the Intense Harmonics project. A trans-Canadian research group from U. Alberta, INRS, U. Northern British Columbia, McMaster U. and U. Sherbrooke have established at ALLS one of the world's most intense THz sources. The INRS group has demonstrated unique, intense sources of high-order harmonics, which may provide breakthroughs in attosecond science and biomedical imaging. However, since ALLS is a user facility, access to its beam time is limited. Users must configure and debug their experimental setup at the start of their beam time, and only after that, they can start acquiring data. Furthermore, exploring applications of the THz and harmonic sources, which will have a broad impact in various science and technology, would be almost impossible. Due to their limited access to ALLS, the Canadian groups are unfortunately losing the world-lead they recently acquired. To overcome this problem, we propose to establish a "Laboratory for Extreme Photon Sources -LEPS", based on the Terawatt Laser Facility (TLF) at the INRS-EMT. We are requesting the minimum components necessary to refurbish the TLF to its ultimate condition, as required by our challenging research program. Experiments at the LEPS using the TLF will provide the means for the Canadian groups to perform additional experiments to fully prepare for the ultimate experiments at ALLS, and to explore unique applications using the Extreme Photon Sources. The LEPS will also provide an excellent platform for highly qualified personnel from multiple institutions to intensively collaborate on research related to THz science and coherent x-ray science.