Our first paper has been published: "Double-clad ytterbium-doped tapered fibre with circular birefringence as a gain medium for structured light" in Optics Letters. This detailed, for the first time, using the spun architecture of the tapered fibre to to prevent polarisation and beam shape distortion during amplification of complex beams. This will have impact generally in the field of optics and will be further used in the V4F project to produce our unique laser technology.
RP2 saw publication of additional articles: “Coherent beam combining of optical vortices” was published in Optics Letters and is the first record of such result. “Interaction of Laguerre-Gaussian laser pulses with borane targets of different hydrogen-boron ratio” was uploaded to arXiv during RP2 and has now been published in Scientific Reports, identifying the optimal proton-boron ratio of targets for fusion experiments with Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Lastly, High Yield of Alpha Particles Generated in Proton-Boron Nuclear Fusion Reactions Induced in Solid Boron Hydride B18H22” was uploaded to arXiv, reporting the record-range alpha-particle yield in our first fusion experiments.