Original manuscripts are sought for a special issue on “Debris and shrapnel production at high-power laser facilities” in High Power Laser Science and Engineering (HPLSE).

Protecting delicate optics from debris is crucial to conducting experiments with high power lasers. On high-energy laser systems like NIF and LMJ, solid shrapnel may be launched at speeds exceeding 1km/s – sufficient to burrow tens of mm into borosilicate glass. Historically, threats from debris have been managed using glass or plastic shields that are regularly replaced – but this approach is not suitable at all facilities. A major driving force behind this call for articles is the commissioning of 1-10PW lasers in Asia, Europe and the US that can fire on timescales of a few minutes or even a few hundred milliseconds. These laser systems are expected to operate in the manner of a “coating plant”, projecting material onto unprotected optics and surfaces within the vacuum chamber and damaging equipment by bombarding them with high-velocity shrapnel. They must also run consistently for long periods, with relatively little time and money available for the manual replacement of damaged equipment. Overcoming problems related to debris will probably combine technological advances with improvements in physical modelling. It will be important for scientists at new laser facilities to understand the major factors which determine the properties of debris and they may need to install automated shielding or tailor targets to control the quantity or angular emission of ejected material. This HPLSE special issue is therefore designed to bring together papers that describe the physics of debris formation with papers on measurement techniques and strategies for reducing the impact of debris on facility operation.

Topics that might be addressed in this special issue include:

– The physics of spall and shock-induced fragmentation

– The physics of laser drilling and lithography

– The physics of ballistic damage relevant to Hertzian cone fracture, crater formation, sputtering, material strength, strain models, etc.

– Descriptions of debris characterisation using (for example) witness/sputter plates, fast framing cameras, or particle capture in gels and plastics

– Analysis techniques for characterising debris, e.g. particle tracking, or material characterisation with interferometry and profilometry

– Modelling debris using computer codes and comparing different simulation methods

– Innovative techniques for protecting optics and other equipment at high power laser facilities

– Experiments designed to study debris physics or related applications, e.g. laser machining

– Comparisons of debris produced by liquid and solid targets

Keywords:

• Debris
• Shrapnel
• Coating
• Sputtering
• Ballistics
• Fracture
• Material strength
• Spall
• Tape drive
• Liquid Leaf

Guest Editors

Philip Bradford, Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK

Enam Chowdhury, Ohio State University, USA

Wenjun Ma, Peking University, China

Didier Raffestin, University of Bordeaux, France

Submission deadline: 5 October, 2026

Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission system at: http://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/clp-hpl. Please select “Special Issue on Debris and Shrapnel Production at High-power Laser Facilities” from the drop-down menu under "Manuscript Type" when submitting manuscript.

HPLSE is an open access journal co-published by Chinese Laser Press and Cambridge University Press. It seeks to uncover the underlying science and engineering in the fields of high energy density physics, high power lasers, advanced laser technology and applications, and laser components. Articles in HPLSE are freely available to all readers worldwide via journals.cambridge.org/hpl & researching.cn/hpl.