UKSBS PR20022 10J Laser Diode System

Description of procurement: The Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), a component Research Council of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is a world-leading multi-disciplinary science organisation, whose goal is to deliver economic, societal, scientific and international benefits to the UK and its people - and more broadly to the world.

Building work is currently underway at UKRI's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) site for the EPAC facility. EPAC will be applied to short pulse high power applications with its 10 Hertz Petawatt Laser. EPAC will provide a step-change in capabilities for laser-driven accelerator research in the UK, enabling a plasma wakefield accelerator facility with multi-GeV electron beams and spatially coherent x-ray and gamma-ray beams for cutting edge experiments in plasma physics, laboratory astrophysics and condensed matter and material science. EPAC will bring together world-leading interdisciplinary expertise to develop and apply novel, laser based, non-conventional accelerators and particle sources which have unique properties.

Proposals are sought by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (UKRI) for the supply of a laser diode pump system for use in a high energy laser amplifier system as part of the Extreme Photonics and Applications centre (EPAC) Project.

The technical document describes the technical specification for this tender to provide a laser diode pump system that will be used to pump an ytterbium:YAG laser amplifier providing pulses with an energy of up to 10 J. This will form part of a larger laser chain, the output of which will be 150 J at 10 Hz.

One laser diode pump system, comprising two laser diode sources, will be delivered, whose optical pulses fulfil the requirements listed below. Unless otherwise stated, parameters, such as output power, apply per source. There is also inclusion of an option to purchase up to a further two systems within 4 years of contract commencement.

The Contracting Authority will consider a proposal where the currency for the Contract Payment is other than GBP. For the purpose of evaluating a tender priced in a foreign currency the conversion rate shall be based on the Bank of England Daily Spot Rate for the bid currency over GBP Sterling. The effective date of the exchange rate for the tender price shall be the Spot Rate at bid opening (the 'bid deadline' date). Price evaluation will be conducted in GBP.

Additional information: Please Note: Do not apply directly to the Buyer. Please disregard any content in this notice that requests your organisation "to apply directly to the buyer" as this unfortunately a system generated error, that is outside of the Contracting Authorities control. The final date and time for the submission of bids is 10 September 2020 at 1400hrs BST. The contracting authority shall utilise the Delta eSourcing Procurement Tool available at the above link to conduct this procurement. All enquiries with respect to problems or functionality within the tool may be submitted to Delta eSourcing on 08452707050. For communication, please utilise the messaging system within the Delta e-sourcing tool at the above link. Delta is a free self-registration website and this can be done by completing the online questionnaire at https://uksbs.delta-esourcing.com/