Name of the participant: Sonja Gerlach
Description of the IT research project: The development of laser systems for research, medical and industrial use shows a strong trend towards higher power and complexity, accompanied by wider fields of application. One application of high-power laser systems is the acceleration of subatomic particles (ions) from a plasma for research in medical physics as well as in the field of materials science. Here, a particular challenge is the control of the properties of the ion beam, since these depend on several laser and plasma parameters. However, the currently used cutting-edge laser systems are still mainly controlled manually, which requires the development of an extensive software environment to control and optimize the multidimensional dependencies.
In this project, the possibilities of a software environment at the ‘Centre for Advanced Laser Applications’, Garching, will be analyzed and realized regarding automation and data management. Here, the 3 PetaWatt Atlas 3000 system is used for laser ion acceleration. Through systematic observation and analysis of the measured parameters, a deeper understanding of laser ion acceleration will first be generated. In the next step, this can be used to optimize the beam characteristics of the ions. For this step, the possibility of using machine learning algorithms will first be evaluated and then applied accordingly.
Software Campus partners: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, TRUMPF
Implementation period: 01.01.2022 – 31.12.2023