Related papers: A Renewable Double Plasma Mirror For Petawatt-clas…
Laser-plasma based experiments are always more demanding about the plasma features which need to be generated during the interaction. This is valid for laser-plasma acceleration as well as for inertial confinement fusion experiments. Most…
We measured, using Petawatt-level pulses, the average ion energy and neutron yield in high-intensity laser interactions with molecular clusters as a function of laser intensity. The interaction volume over which fusion occurred (1-10 mm^3)…
Ultrashort burst laser pulses serve as powerful tools for precise laser processing, broadband ultrafast spectroscopy, and high-speed laser-scanning microscopy. However, the performance of conventional burst pulse generators is limited by…
Thanks to advances in plasma science and enabling technology, mirror machines are being reconsidered for fusion power plants and as possible fusion volumetric neutron sources. However cross-field transport and turbulence in mirrors remains…
Spatially-structured light with tunable intensity, wavelength, and spatiotemporal profiles has demonstrated significant potentials for fundamental and applied science, including the ultrafast and high-field physics. Nevertheless, the…
Synchronising ultra-short (~fs) and focussed laser pulses is a particularly difficult task, as this timescale lies orders of magnitude below the typical range of fast electronic devices. Here we present an optical technique that allows for…
Over the last decades, significant advances in high-power laser systems have enabled rapid progress in the development of laser-driven plasma accelerators. Today, the results obtained in beam stability and reproducibility present laser…
Short (40-200 microseconds) single focused CO2 laser pulses of energy of about 100 microJ were used to fabricate high quality concave micromirror templates on silica and fluoride glass. The ablated features have diameters of 20-100 microns…
This dissertation explores the interaction between high-intensity lasers and plasmas to accelerate electrons and produce radiation via experimental and computational efforts. The laser pulses used in this dissertation have ultrashort…
Ultrafast pump-probe technique is a powerful tool to understand and manipulate properties of materials for designing novel quantum devices. An intense, single cycle terahertz pulse can change the intrinsic properties of semiconductor…
In a new divertor simulator, an ultra-cold (Te<1 eV) high density recombining magnetized laboratory plasma is studied using probes, spectroscopic measurements, and ultra-fast imaging of spontaneous emission. The Mistral-B device consists in…
Reducing a set of diverse bulk-optic-based optical components to a single ultrathin and compact element that enables the same complex functionality has become an emerging research area, propelling further integration and miniaturization in…
When a finite contrast petawatt laser pulse irradiates a micron-thick foil, a prepulse (including amplified spontaneous emission) creates a preplasma, where an ultrashort relativistically strong portion of the laser pulse (the main pulse)…
Owing to the rapid progress in laser technology, very high-contrast femtosecond laser pulses of relativistic intensities become available. These pulses allow for interaction with micro-structured solid-density plasma without destroying the…
We propose convergent plasma lenses, possibly from current sheets, as a generic solution to strong interstellar scattering. These lenses resolve the overpressure problem by geometric alignment as noted by Goldreich and Shridhar (2006). They…
An in-process coherent imaging diagnostic has been developed to real-time measure the hole depth during air-film hole drilling by a femtosecond laser. A super-luminescent diode with a wavelength of 830~13 nm is chosen as the coherent light…
Laser-driven plasma accelerators can generate accelerating gradients three orders of magnitude larger than radio-frequency accelerators and have achieved beam energies above 1 GeV in centimetre long stages. However, the pulse repetition…
The interaction of intense particle bunches with plasma can give rise to plasma wakes capable of sustaining gigavolt-per-metre electric fields, which are orders of magnitude higher than provided by state-of-the-art radio-frequency…
We demonstrate a high throughput, large compensation range, single-prism femtosecond pulse compressor, using a single prism and two roof mirrors. The compressor has zero angular dispersion, zero spatial dispersion, zero pulse-front tilt,…
We generated and characterized plasma with single and double picosecond laser pulses in order to study the plume dynamics and to control the plasma properties. The double-pulse scheme was found to be superior for the generation of a…