Related papers: HotLoop Optimization of Petawatt Laser Focal Spot …
When an ultrashort laser pulse is tightly focused to a size approaching its central wavelength, the properties of the focused spot diverge from the diffraction limited case. Here we report on this change in behavior of a tightly focused…
Optimizing laser and plasma parameters is crucial for enhancing accelerated proton energy in laser-driven proton acceleration with finite laser energy for applications such as cancer therapy. Tight focusing plays a significant role in…
We present the experimental results on ion acceleration by petawatt femtosecond laser solid interaction and explore strategies to enhance ion energy. The irradiation of micrometer thick (0.2 - 6.0 micron) Al foils with a virtually…
We present a novel technique to assess the focal volume of petawatt-class lasers at full power. Our approach exploits quantitative measurement of the angular distribution of electrons born in the focus via ionization of rarefied gas, which…
We present a novel laser based ion acceleration scheme, where a petawatt circularly polarized laser pulse is shot on an ultra-thin (nano-scale) double-layer target. Our scheme allows the production of high-quality light ion beams with both…
Ultra intense lasers are a promising source of energetic ions for various applications. An interesting approach described in Ferri et al. 2019 argues from Particle-in-Cell simulations that using two laser pulses of half energy (half…
Ultra-short high-power lasers can deliver extreme light intensities ($\ge 10^{20}$ W/cm$^2$ and $\leq 30 f$s) and drive large amplitude Surface Plasma Wave (SPW) at over-dense plasma surface. The resulting current of energetic electron has…
Two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations characterizing the interaction of ultraintense short pulse lasers in the range 10^{18} \leq I \leq 10^{20} W/cm^{2} with converging target geometries are presented. Seeking to examine intensity…
We describe how active feedback routines can be applied at limited repetition rate (5 Hz) to optimize high-power $>10$ TW) laser interactions with clustered gases. Optimization of x-ray production from an argon cluster jet, using a genetic…
Particle acceleration using ultraintense, ultrashort laser pulses is one of the most attractive topics in relativistic laser-plasma research. We report proton/ion acceleration in the intensity range of 5x1019 W/cm2 to 3.3x1020 W/cm2 by…
Ultra-high intensity femtosecond lasers at focus are now routinely used for relativistic motion of charged particles with peak intensities over 10^18W/cm^2. Such high-field experiments are very sensitive to the value of the peak intensity.…
Compact, stable, and versatile laser-driven ion sources hold great promise for applications ranging from medicine to materials science and fundamental physics. While single-shot sources have demonstrated favorable beam properties, including…
We present an experimental demonstration of high conversion efficiency Betatron x-ray radiation from petawatt laser irradiated near critical plasmas. Direct laser acceleration serves as the dominant regime when laser pulse of ~5e20 W/cm2…
The next generation of Petawatt-class lasers presents the opportunity to study positron production and acceleration experimentally, in an all-optical setting. Several configurations were proposed to produce and accelerate positrons in a…
Laser-solid interaction can lead to the acceleration of protons to tens of MeV. Here, we show that a strong enhancement of this acceleration can be achieved by splitting the laser pulse to two parts of equal energy and opposite incidence…
We consider an optimal control problem for a single-spot pulsed laser welding problem. The distribution of thermal energy is described by a quasilinear heat equation. Our emphasis is on materials which tend to suffer from hot cracking, such…
The extreme electric fields created in high-intensity laser-plasma interactions could generate energetic ions far more compactly than traditional accelerators. Despite this promise, laser-plasma accelerators have remained stagnant at…
Using a kilojoule class laser, we demonstrate for the first time that high-contrast picosecond pulses are advantageous for ion acceleration. We show that a laser pulse with optimum duration and a large focal spot accelerates electrons…
We report on an experimental demonstration of laser wakefield electron acceleration using a sub-TW power laser by tightly focusing 30-fs laser pulses with only 8 mJ pulse energy on a 100 \mu m scale gas target. The experiments are carried…
Experimental results, supported by precise modelling, demonstrate optimisation of a plasma-based injector with intermediate laser pulse energy ($<1$ J), corresponding to a normalised vector potential $a_0 = 2.15$, using ionisation injection…