Achieving ignition of ICF (inertial confinement fusion) has been the great dream that scientists all over the world pursue. As a grand challenge, this aim requires energetic and high quality lasers. High power laser facilities, for this purpose, have therefore flourished over the past several decades. Meanwhile high power laser facilities, also essential for high-energy-density (HED) scientific research and astrophysics, drive rapid progress of material science, electronics, precision machinery and so on. Many countries have successfully established a succession of facilities to study ICF and HED physics, such as National Ignition Facility (NIF)^[1] in the United States and the Laser Megajoule (LMJ) in France^[2]. China, conducted such research activities early, as one of the few countries having the capability of developing high power facilities independently. As the major pioneer dedicated to high power laser technology and ICF research in China, the National Laboratory on High Power Laser and Physics (NLHPLP) and its precursor have established a succession of facilities since 1973. In 1986 NLHPLP was formally established at Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics; this opened up a new era of laser fusion research in China. Since then the facilities at NLHPLP entered into ‘Shen Guang’ families. Since the SG-I facility dismantled in 1994, NLHPLP has successively constructed SG-II laser facility, SG-II 9th beam, SG-II upgrade (SG-II UP) facility, and SG-II 5PW facility. These operational facilities constitute a multifunctional experimental platform, which provide important experimental capabilities by combining different pulse widths of nanosecond, picosecond and femtosecond scales. SG-II facility, greatly promoting Chinese ICF research, has had a stable and excellent operation for approximately 20 years. A newly built SG-II UP facility, consisting of a single petawatt picosecond system with kJ-class output and eight-beam nanosecond capability with multi-pass amplifier configuration, has achieved the required outputs. This facility marks a major step of increasing capability of designing and constructing high power facilities. In addition, SG-II 5 PW facility is already operational for physical experiments. Construction of these facilities has driven the fabrication and processing of large optical components. Furthermore, many advanced technologies have been developed that ensured good performance of these systems. Apparently with operations spanning 30 years, NLHPLP is an important scientific research base on high power laser scientific research in China.

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) [Dubietis et al., Opt. Commun. 88, 437 (1992)] implemented by multikilojoule Nd:glass pump lasers is a promising approach to produce ultraintense pulses (${>}10^{23}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^{2}$). Technologies are being developed to upgrade the OMEGA EP Laser System with the goal to pump an optical parametric amplifier line (EP OPAL) with two of the OMEGA EP beamlines. The resulting ultraintense pulses (1.5 kJ, 20 fs, $10^{24}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^{2}$) would be used jointly with picosecond and nanosecond pulses produced by the other two beamlines. A midscale OPAL pumped by the Multi-Terawatt (MTW) laser is being constructed to produce 7.5-J, 15-fs pulses and demonstrate scalable technologies suitable for the upgrade. MTW OPAL will share a target area with the MTW laser (50 J, 1 to 100 ps), enabling several joint-shot configurations. We report on the status of the MTW OPAL system, and the technology development required for this class of all-OPCPA laser system for ultraintense pulses.

A multichannel calorimeter system is designed and constructed which is capable of delivering single-shot and broad-band spectral measurement of terahertz (THz) radiation generated in intense laser–plasma interactions. The generation mechanism of backward THz radiation (BTR) is studied by using the multichannel calorimeter system in an intense picosecond laser–solid interaction experiment. The dependence of the BTR energy and spectrum on laser energy, target thickness and pre-plasma scale length is obtained. These results indicate that coherent transition radiation is responsible for the low-frequency component (${<}$1 THz) of BTR. It is also observed that a large-scale pre-plasma primarily enhances the high-frequency component (${>}$3 THz) of BTR.

The spatial-intensity profile of light reflected during the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a microstructured target is investigated experimentally and the potential to apply this as a diagnostic of the interaction physics is explored numerically. Diffraction and speckle patterns are measured in the specularly reflected light in the cases of targets with regular groove and needle-like structures, respectively, highlighting the potential to use this as a diagnostic of the evolving plasma surface. It is shown, via ray-tracing and numerical modelling, that for a laser focal spot diameter smaller than the periodicity of the target structure, the reflected light patterns can potentially be used to diagnose the degree of plasma expansion, and by extension the local plasma temperature, at the focus of the intense laser light. The reflected patterns could also be used to diagnose the size of the laser focal spot during a high-intensity interaction when using a regular structure with known spacing.

The paper presents a review of dynamic stabilization mechanisms for plasma instabilities. One of the dynamic stabilization mechanisms for plasma instability was proposed in the paper [Kawata, Phys. Plasmas 19, 024503 (2012)], based on a perturbation phase control. In general, instabilities emerge from the perturbations. Normally the perturbation phase is unknown, and so the instability growth rate is discussed. However, if the perturbation phase is known, the instability growth can be controlled by a superimposition of perturbations imposed actively. Based on this mechanism we present the application results of the dynamic stabilization mechanism to the Rayleigh–Taylor instability (RTI) and to the filamentation instability as typical examples in this paper. On the other hand, in the paper [Boris, Comments Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 3, 1 (1977)] another mechanism was proposed to stabilize RTI, and was realized by the pulse train or the laser intensity modulation in laser inertial fusion [Betti et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 3131 (1993)]. In this latter mechanism, an oscillating strong force is applied to modify the basic equation, and consequently the new stabilization window is created. Originally the latter was proposed by Kapitza. We review the two stabilization mechanisms, and present the application results of the former dynamic stabilization mechanism.

In 2018 the journal High Power Laser Science and Engineering produced a Special Issue on Laboratory Astrophysics. The scope of the special issue was to span the latest research and reviews on the following topics related to laboratory astrophysics and related phenomena. The topics invited for inclusion were: