OMEGA EP: High-energy petawatt capability for the OMEGA laser facility

OMEGA EP (Extended Performance) is a petawatt-class addition to the existing 30-KJ, 60-beam OMEGA Laser Facility at the University of Rochester. When completed, it will consist of four beamlines, each capable of producing up to 6.5 kJ at 351 urn in a I to 10 ns pulse. Two of the beamlines will produce up to 2.6kJ in a pulse-width range of 1 to 100ps at 1053 nm using chirped-pulse amplification (CPA). This paper reviews both the OMEGA EP performance objectives and the enabling technologies required to meet these goals.