Target densities near the critical plasma density are of great interest for the laser-ion acceleration community, as new and interesting acceleration mechanisms can occur at these densities due to the effect of relativistically induced transparency.
Designing and builing near-critical densitiy targets with closely defined parameters has thus been the goal of much recent and ongoing target...
Cryogenic jet targets are attracting growing attention in scientific fields investigated at x-ray free electron laser and high power laser facilities, e.g. in high energy density science exploring extreme states of matter or in relativistic laser plasma interactions aiming to develop novel ion accelerators.
A key advantage of cryogenic targets is the unique capability to deliver ultra-pure...
Spectroscopy of liquids and microscopic specimens within liquid environment is important as much of the reactions concerning life on earth happen in the aqueous environment. However such study faces difficulty when we try to use photons from the parts (e.g. infrared or extreme ultraviolet) of the electromagnetic spectrum which get strongly absorbed within the aqueous environment. Although,...
Optical field Ionization techniques have been used for many years in plasma targetry manufacturing in order to create guiding structures or for controlling electron beam acceleration distance and injection position. These techniques have been shown to be viable in high repetition rate systems. In this talk, I will present results of using such a technique to create and control longitudinally...
Nanostructured targets, with a brush like geometry (e.g., nanowires NWs), showed improved laser absorption both in particle-in-cell simulations and experimental studies on laser-driven particle acceleration. Using aligned nanowires with sub-wavelength diameter the maximum proton energy can be enhanced up to 2-3 times, due to increased hot electron density and temperature. By controlling the...
Laser-driven ion sources [1] represent a promising alternative over conventional ion and electron accelerators, with potential applications ranging from the medical field [2] to nuclear and material science [3]. Compact laser-driven ion sources would be a valuable asset in many of those applications, exploiting tabletop laser systems—in the range of tens of TW and capable of high repetition...
The interactions of ultra-intense lasers with solid targets with nanowires received a lot of attention because they appear to show potentials to increase the laser light absorption rate. Laser-nanowire interactions open up various applications such as attosecond bunch generation, enhanced x-ray generation, brilliance gamma-ray yield, as well as efficient micro fusion. Despite many studies on...
L3-HAPLS (High-repetition-rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System) at ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) Beamlines currently delivers 0.45 PW pulses (12 J in 27 fs) at 3.3 Hz repetition rate. A fresh target surface for every shot was placed at the laser focus using an in-house tape target system designed to withstand large laser intensities and energies. It has been tested for different material...
A multi-shot target assembly for laser-plasma proton acceleration has been commissioned at the Laser Laboratory for Acceleration and Applications (L2A2), at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The assembly consists of a multi-target wheel holding plain target foils for around 1000 – 2000 shots. Two linear stages and one rotating stage hold the target wheel and move it to replenish the...
We will give an update on the current developments on our target positioning system for levitating, isolated micro spheres. The Paul trap system is specifically designed to ensure functionality at high-power laser systems. Active damping enables reliable overlap of the micrometer-sized target with the micrometer-sized laser focus.
The complete target system can now be fully remote controlled....
After the interaction between an intense laser pulse and a solid target, the target is usually destroyed. Due to this damage, a target delivery technique must be implemented to renew the target with the required repetition rate and precision. This process must be done carefully to maintain the target in focus at high repetition rate (1 kHz), since an online measurement of the target position...
In the past four years we have investigated gold ion acceleration at the Texas Petawatt laser (Austin, Texas with a pulse length of 110 fs) and the GSI PHELIX laser in Darmstadt (with a pulse length of 500 fs) [1,2] in the context of developing the novel ‘fission-fusion’ nuclear reaction mechanism [3]. In order to allow for efficient heavy-ion acceleration with kinetic cutoff-energies above 5...
Modern laser facilities for Laser-Driven Plasma Acceleration (LDPA) reach intensities < $10^{20}W/cm^{2}$ making them capable of accelerating particles up to the relativistic regime. In order to have an efficient acceleration mechanism the laser pulse needs to interact with the laser at its top intensity, nonetheless effects like ASE and pre-pulses can generate intensities high above the metal...
