ELI User Meeting 2026

Contribution List

33. A Rotating Target Array for Multi-Petawatt Laser Experiments

Poster

Multi-petawatt laser facilities present a challenging environment for precision motion systems. NSF OPAL is a proposed next-generation ultra-high-intensity laser facility featuring two, 25PW beams used to study topics at the frontiers of science. As part of the NSF Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 (RI-1) design phase, a Rapid Target Deployment System (RTDS) has been developed to meet these...

9. Advances in Laser-Driven Particle Beams and Radiobiology at Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) Facilities

Poster

Purpose: Laser-driven plasma-based particle accelerators beam sources offer (ns-fs) pulses, with spatial resolution, and ultra-high dose rates/shot, presenting promise for radiation modalities such as FLASH radiotherapy. This study aims to present the preliminary radiobiological outcomes of various laser-driven ionizing beams (neutrons, electrons, and protons) operating at the Extreme Light...

4. An MeV X-ray source from Laser Wakefield Acceleration based betatron radiation

Poster

Laser-driven plasma X-ray sources are attractive for High Energy Density Science, particularly for diagnosing Inertial Confinement Fusion implosions and resolving the influence of hydrodynamic instabilities such as Rayleigh-Taylor growth. For these applications, an effective source must combine high spatial resolution (< 50 um) with photon energies reaching several hundred keV, sufficient to...

8. Bayesian Optimization of Multi-Stage Laser Wakefield X-ray Sources

Poster

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) has proven highly effective in producing high-energy electron beams and bright femtosecond X-ray pulses. However, achieving high conversion efficiency remains a key challenge for widespread applications. In this work, we numerically investigate the accelerator–radiator scheme -- a method that combines a low-density acceleration stage with a higher-density...

2. Compact Laser-Driven Plasma X-ray Source for Time-Resolved Diffraction and Pump–Probe Studies at ELI Beamlines

Poster

We report on a compact laser-driven plasma X-ray source developed and operated at ELI Beamlines for time-resolved diffraction, spectroscopy, and imaging applications. The source is based on the interaction of an ultrashort near-infrared laser (central wavelength λ ≈ 800 nm, pulse duration τ ≈ 30–50 fs) with solid targets at intensities in the range of 10^17–10^19 W/cm2. Under these conditions,...

13. Controlled Electron Injection in Laser Wakefield Acceleration using Nanoparticles

Poster

Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) can generate compact relativistic electron beams, but its performance is often limited by uncontrolled self-injection. We present a quasi-3D particle-in-cell study (Smilei) of nanoparticle-assisted injection in helium plasma. We show that nanoparticles act as localized perturbations that trigger earlier injection of background helium electrons, modifying the...

15. Cross-Calibration of Electron Beam Charge Diagnostics at the 1 kHz Laser System at ALFA in ELI Beamlines Facility

Poster

The NANOCD ALFA IZ experiment at ALFA plasma accelerator at the ELI Beamlines Facility in the Czech Republic, focused on the characterization and cross-calibration of electron beam charge diagnostics generated by the kHz L1-Allegra laser system. The primary objective was to establish reliable, non-invasive methods for electron beam charge estimation at such a high repetition level.

In this...

44. Development of a 1 kHz High-Repetition Rate Electron Source

Daniele Palla (INO-CNR)

Poster

This work reports on the successful implementation of a Laser Wakefield
Acceleration (LWFA) setup driven by a 1 kHz Ti:Sa laser at 800 nm at the ILIL-CNR
laboratory. The experimental campaign involved the integration of a high-pressure
supersonic gas target, supported by a differential pumping system, and the
deployment of advanced diagnostics, including shadowgraphy and Thomson...

30. Dosimetric Characterization of Laser-Driven Electron Beams for Electron Radiotherapy

Poster

Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) provide compact sources of relativistic electron beams with significant potential for a wide range of scientific, industrial, and medical applications. This work investigates the dosimetry of broadband electron beams generated using the Arcturus laser system at the Institute of Laser and Plasma Physics, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, and explores their...

37. Effect of residual gas pressure on ablation plasma properties in ns-kJ laser-solid interactions

Poster

The characterization of plasma conditions and parametric instabilities generation is of critical interest for ICF studies. During an experiment conducted with the L4n laser at ELI Beamlines, we observed a systematic increase of bulk electron plasma temperatures and a decrease of Stimulated Raman Scattering generation while increasing the vacuum pressure from 1e-5 to 1 mbar. These results...

5. HD and MHD Plasma Simulations inside Discharge Capillaries with PLUTO

Poster

Simulations play a key role in the design of plasma sources, employed for plasma-based accelerators and related applications. However, most simulation tools are proprietary and require costly licenses. We present the open source code PLUTO, which allows users to perform 3D, hydrodynamic (HD) and magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, originally designed for astrophysical plasmas, that we've...

11. High-Sensitivity Four-Pass Interferometry for Laser-Plasma Accelerator Diagnostics

Poster

This work presents a comprehensive optical diagnostic framework for laser-plasma accelerators, focusing on advanced interferometry. We introduce a high-sensitivity, four-pass interferometry setup designed for precise analysis of gas target density profiles, which are crucial for Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) and X-ray generation.

The experimental setup accurately measures the phase...

22. Injecting Arbitrarily Tilted Laser Pulses in PIC-code Smilei

Poster

Electron-positron pairs are produced by ultra-intense (multi-petawatt) laser pulses through the multiphoton Breit-Wheeler process [1]. The required peak intensity can be reduced by forming a tightly confined hot spot using several counter-propagating pulses [2,3]. Our aim is to further optimise this approach and move it closer to experimentally achievable conditions.

We simulate these...

7. Laser-Plasma Acceleration – STAbilization for Radiotherapy

Poster

Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) can generate high-quality electron beams in compact, fully optical setups, with promising applications in radiotherapy.
Among the causes of beam stability we can find laser pointing fluctuations at various timescales, caused by thermal drifts, air currents, and mechanical vibrations.
These instabilities affect the reproducibility of electron generation and...

18. Mapping Cascaded Second-order (χ(2)) Response in LiNbO₃ Using TIPTOE

Poster

Recent advances in ultrafast optics, specifically the Tunneling Ionization with a Perturbation for the Time-domain Observation of an Electric field (TIPTOE) technique, have enabled the direct, real-time, sub-cycle measurement of few-cycle electric fields [1]. Beyond standard pulse characterization, this technique can be utilized for probing ultrafast light-matter interactions due to its...

32. MASKLESS INTERFEROMETRIC METHOD FOR SUBMICRON STRUCTURING OF HIGH-RESILIENT DIELECTRICS

Poster

High-power laser applications demand highly robust diffractive optical elements. Standard gold-coated reflection gratings suffer from 3–5% thermal absorption, causing structural degradation under intense loads. While multilayer dielectric gratings offer higher damage thresholds, their narrow reflection bandwidth and susceptibility to vacuum delamination restrict their use in broadband...

17. Modeling the response of photovoltaic materials to ultrafast X-ray irradiation

Poster

Cadmium telluride (CdTe), lead sulfide (PbS), and indium tin oxide (ITO) are semiconductor materials commonly used in photovoltaic technologies, light-emitting diodes, and radiation detectors for Free Electron Laser sources. Ultrafast XUV/X-ray irradiation of these materials was modelled with the state-of-the-art hybrid code XTANT-31,2. ITO and PbS disorder at ∼0.3-0.4 eV/atom and ∼0.2-0.3...

19. Modular multiscale approach to modelling high-harmonic generation in gases

Poster

We will present the recently released open-source MMA-HHG toolbox (https://mma-hhg.github.io/) for modelling high-harmonic generation (HHG) in gases. The package provides a common framework for coupling the microscopic response of elementary emitters to the local driving field resulting from nonlinear propagation in the macroscopic generating medium, and for coherently combining these...

39. Multiwavelength Photoacoustic Spectroscopy for Emission-Based Fuel Development

Poster

For emission-based fuel development, we measured the absorption of diesel exhaust particulate matter using a multi wavelength photoacoustic system with lasers ranging from thenear-infrared to the ultraviolet range.
We also measured the electrical mobility size of the particles. Additionally, we performed the measurements at two different volatility temperatures (i.e.,40°C and 250°C). We...

31. Narrowband Signal Generation in a Backward-Wave Optical Parametric Oscillator Pumped by a Broadband Incoherent Wave

Poster

Backward-wave optical parametric oscillators (BWOPOs) are mirrorless parametric devices in which signal and idler waves propagate in opposite directions. Under incoherent pumping, this geometry makes it possible to achieve coherent backward-wave generation over a substantially wider pump-wavelength range than conventional parametric devices. Here, we numerically simulate an incoherently pumped...

6. Non-invasive machine-learning-based synthetic diagnostics of laser-driven ion sources

Poster

Laser-driven ion beams offer intrinsically ultrashort bunches and extreme instantaneous dose rates that are attractive for multidisciplinary applications spanning radiobiology, dosimetry, radiation resilience and imaging [1]. However, translating these sources into reliable ‘user beams’ remains challenging because key beam properties (e.g. spectral shape, cut-off energy, divergence and dose)...

34. NSF OPAL Data Sharing and Artificial Intelligence

Poster

This poster presents an overview of the data management and sharing plan being developed for the potential future NSF OPAL facility, as well as plans for integrating Artificial Intelligence into both operations and scientific aspects of all project phases: remaining design, construction, commissioning, and operations. The framework incorporates findings from other scientific research...

21. Phase elements in the Bulk of Sapphire

Poster

Large-aperture, high-threshold phase optics are needed for beam transport and nonlinear experiments at high-intensity laser facilities. We demonstrate crack-free volumetric inscription of Laue-type photonic-crystal spatial filters [1,2] in sapphire using fourth-harmonic femtosecond direct laser writing at 257 nm. Deep-UV two-photon absorption combined with crystallographically defined writing...

23. Polarization control of sub-cycle interference during strong-field molecular dissociation

Poster

The attosecond dynamics of strong-field-driven electrons is sensitive to the sub-cycle temporal and polarization structure of the driving field. We experimentally investigated the dissociative ionization of molecular hydrogen in intense laser field using shot-to-shot carrier-envelope phase (CEP) tagging and polarization control of few-cycle infrared pulses having 1030 nm central wavelength...

16. Post-mortem characterization of C nanofoam-based double layer targets for laser-driven ion acceleration

Poster

In recent years, the continuous emergence of numerous facilities capable of generating highly intense, short-duration (~fs) laser pulses with a high grade of precision and reproducibility has driven growing interest in laser-plasma interaction applications, particularly in proton and ion acceleration through Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) mechanism. This technique represents a...

42. Precision on a Budget: Low-Cost Direct Writing of Fiber-Optic Microstructures via MicroMake Laser Micromachining

Poster

The widespread deployment of advanced optical fiber sensors is frequently bottlenecked by fabrication methods that are time-consuming, costly, reliant on hazardous chemicals, or restrictively complex. This study demonstrates a rapid, chemical-free, and highly reproduceable approach for the direct writing of micro-structured fiber sensors using a 266 nm nanosecond UV-laser micromachining...

36. Radiobiological Evaluation of Laser-Plasma-Accelerated Very High-Energy Electrons (VHEEs) at Ultra-High Instantaneous Dose Rates in Human Leukocytes

Poster

Very high-energy electrons (VHEEs, 50–250 MeV) are emerging as a promising modality for the treatment of deep-seated tumors due to their favorable penetration depth, dose conformity, and reduced sensitivity to tissue heterogeneities. Their potential application in FLASH radiotherapy further increases interest, as ultra-high dose rates may enhance normal tissue sparing while maintaining tumor...

10. Research potential in the Ultrafast Nanoscience Group @ ELI ALPS

Poster

The Ultrafast Nanoscience Group supports internal and user research by providing nanofabrication and characterization at nanoscale.
Nanolithography is based on an Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) system. Metallic nanostructure arrays for plasmonic applications [1] or electrodes allowing for light field–controlled PHz currents in dielectrics, semiconductors [2] and metals [3] were...

3. Self-consistent Model Copper Vapor Laser (CVL) Stability Analysis under Parameters variation

Poster

A self-consistent model copper vapor laser (CVL) is very helpful for characterization of the copper laser and its implementation. It uses vapors of copper as the lasing medium in a 3-level laser. It can produce green laser light (510.6 nm) and yellow laser light (578.2 nm). The peak power of the laser pulse can be between 50kw and 5000 kw. The pulse width is typically from 5 nsec to 60 nsec...

29. Single-Cycle, 30 μJ mid-IR Pulses at 100 kHz at ELI ALPS

Poster

We demonstrate a compact and reliable dual-stage bulk post-compression system designed to deliver high-energy, single-cycle mid-IR pulses at high repetition rates for strong-field physics and attosecond spectroscopy. Operating at a 100 kHz repetition rate, the system compresses 42 fs pulses centered at 3.2 µm from an 8.5 W optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA). Nonlinear spectral...

40. Status and Perspectives of I-LUCE Future User Facility at INFN-LNS

Poster

INFN-LNS is developing the I-LUCE (INFN-Laser indUCEd Radiation Production) facility, a compact laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) integrated within its existing cyclotron and TANDEM infrastructure. The facility will host two laser systems: a THALES Ti:Sa laser delivering up to 320 TW (1–7.7 J, 23–25 fs, 2.2 Hz) and a low-power Astrella laser (9 mJ, 32 fs, 1 kHz) for low-energy electron studies...

41. Supercontinuum Laser-Excited Photonic Crystal Fiber based Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor for Ultrasensitive Cancer Biomarker Detection

Poster

This research presents a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor illuminated by a supercontinuum laser source and numerically investigated using the finite element method (FEM) in COMSOL Multiphysics 6.2 for cancer cell detection through refractive index (RI) variations.
The sensor numerically incorporates a gold (Au) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) plasmonic...

35. SURFACE DIFFRACTIVE OPTICAL ELEMENTS AND THEIR FABRICATION ON GLASS SUBSTRATES USING ULTRAFAST UV LASER PULSES

Poster

Surface diffractive optical elements (DOEs) on transparent dielectric materials were fabricated using ultrashort UV laser pulses via direct laser writing. The work focuses on the rapid and flexible fabrication of phase-type DOEs by femtosecond laser surface ablation on glass substrates. Compared to conventional lithographic techniques, the proposed method does not require photomasks or...

25. SYLOS SHHG: A Versatile Few-Cycle-Laser – Surface-Plasma Interaction Platform at ELI-ALPS

Poster

The [SYLOS SHHG][1] beamline at ELI-ALPS is designed to investigate the interaction of relativistic intensity (> $10^{18} W/cm^2$) few-cycle (pulse-width ~ 8 fs) laser pulses with near-solid-density surface plasma (density > $10^{21} cm^{-3}$), and explore the plasma dynamics and subsequent generation of secondary particles and radiations resulting from the interaction [1, 2]. The beamline is...

14. The Gammatron Beamline: A Compact Source of Betatron X-ray Radiation

Poster

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) offers a way to accelerate electrons to high energies over very short distances, providing a compact alternative to conventional large-scale accelerators. The Gammatron beamline is designed to exploit this mechanism for the generation of short-wavelength, broadband X-ray radiation based on betatron emission.
In this setup, an intense laser pulse is focused...

20. The simulation of high-harmonic generation driven by Bessel-Gauss beams and its applications

Poster

The project focuses on simulating high-harmonic generation (HHG) driven by Bessel-Gauss beams, which can be, for example, used to construct a spectrally selective generation scheme (https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.109.033517). To model the system, numerical simulations combining the microscopic atomic response and macroscopic field propagation are conducted using the...

27. Theory and simulations at ELI ALPS

Poster

We give an overview about the scientific topics and activities of the Theory and Simulations Group at ELI ALPS.

Scientific activity types:

• Theory and simulation support for ELI users
• ELI internal topics, support for ELI groups
• Theory group’s research topics, including User Proposals

Main research topics:

• Attosecond pulse generation by Thomson back-scattering [1]
  -...

38. Thiocyanate Intrinsic Probing of SERS Hotspots: From Aggregation Studies to Ultrafast Dynamics at MAC (ELI Beamlines)

Poster

We investigate thiocyanate-induced aggregation of 15-30 nm gold nanoparticles using KSCN and NaSCN, focusing on how
ion-specific hydration effects influence plasmonic coupling, and Surfaces enhancement Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) hotspot formation.

SCN⁻ acts as a chaotropic aggregation agent and as an intrinsic Raman-active probe enabling real-time monitoring of interparticle enhancement...

26. Towards high-quality laser-driven ion beams for radiobiology studies at ELI-NP

Poster

Understanding the underlying mechanisms of the interaction of radiation with cells and tissues is the central goal of radiobiology.
The search for approaches to widen the therapeutic window by sparing healthy tissue while maintaining tumour control led to the idea of using ultra-high radiation dose rates.
Laser-driven ion acceleration represents a completely new approach for producing...

45. Towards Quantitative Characterization of Ultrashort Pulse-Shape-Instability Using Multi-Shot SHG FROG

Abinash Das (3School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA), Bilol Banerjee (4Department of Statistics and Data Science, Faculty of Science NUS, National University of Singapore), Elouan P. Duchrist Crews (3School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA), Pedram Abdolghader (Institute of Quantum Optics, Leibniz University Hannover, Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover, Germany and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany), Rana Jafari (School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA), Rick Trebino (School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA)

Poster

Advances in laser technology have enabled the generation of optical pulses approaching a single optical cycle in duration and achieving peak powers of up to 10 PW. Such ultrashort pulses are essential for a wide range of applications, including high-harmonic generation (HHG), fusion science, and attosecond science, where pulse-shape stability is of critical importance. Since the early days of...

12. Tracking Excited-State Dynamics and Triplet Formation in Functionalized DPP Molecules using Ultrafast Spectroscopy

Poster

Spectroscopic investigation of thiophene-diketopyrrolopyrrole (TDPP) derivatives functionalized with benzoxazole (R-BOX) and dicyanothiophene (R-TCN) groups was carried out using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy to understand their excited-state dynamics in solution and thin films.* In chloroform solution, R-BOX showed strong fluorescence with rapid relaxation back to the ground...

1. Twisting Harmonics: Transfer of Orbital Angular Momentum in Solid-State High Harmonic Generation

Poster

Solid-state platforms underpin modern electronics, yet how intense ultrashort light pulses carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) interact with solids remains largely unexplored. By contrast, conventional light–matter interactions are often described well within the dipole limit, with electron dynamics being confined to a single Brillouin zone. Progress has been limited by the technical...

43. Two-Photon Lithography of Highly Porous Microtargets for Inertial Confinement Fusion Experiments

Poster

This work focuses on the fabrication of highly porous microtargets for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments using Two-Photon Lithography (TPL). For efficient plasma generation, ICF targets must exhibit low atomic number composition, very low and uniform density, high porosity, and structural uniformity. Woodpile microfoams were fabricated from acrylate-based photoresists using a 517nm...

24. Ultra-Relativistic Laser–Plasma Interaction Studies at ELI ALPS: The UFO Platform and SHHG-HF-PW Beamline

Poster

ELI ALPS provides a unique infrastructure for investigating laser–matter interactions at relativistic intensities through the combination of the UltraFast Optics (UFO) experimental platform and the Surface High Harmonic Generation High-Field (SHHG-HF) beamline driven by the High-Field Petawatt (HF-PW) laser system. These instruments enable studies of dense plasma dynamics, secondary radiation...

28. World record average power two-cycle laser at ELI ALPS

Poster

We report on the development of a carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-stable 1030 nm fiber-based laser system producing 6.2 fs pulses achieved via the multi-pass cell (MPC) post-compression technique with 402 W average power at 100 kHz repetition rate. This system employs an upgraded three-stage MPC compression scheme exhibiting excellent beam quality properties for this intensity region. Active...