The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.

A petawatt facility fully based on noncollinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (NOPCPA) technology, Vulcan OPPEL (Vulcan OPCPA PEtawatt Laser), is presented. This system will be coupled with the existing hybrid-CPA/OPCPA VULCAN laser system (500 J, 500 fs beamline; 250 J, ns regime beamline) based on Nd:glass amplification. Its pulse duration (20 times shorter) combined with the system design will allow the auxiliary beamline and its secondary sources to be used as probe beams for longer pulses and their interactions with targets. The newly designed system will be mainly dedicated to electron beam generation, but could also be used to perform a variety of particle acceleration and optical radiation detection experimental campaigns. In this communication, we present the entire beamline design discussing the technology choices and the design supported by extensive simulations for each system section. Finally, we present experimental results and details of our commissioned NOPCPA picosecond front end, delivering 1.5 mJ, ~180 nm (1/e²) of bandwidth compressed to sub-15 fs.