One-dimensional particle-in-cell and Monte-Carlo (FLUKA) simulation methods were used together, in order to investigate the production of positrons in lead targets, illuminated by a short-pulse high-intensity laser. The study is focused on lead targets of 1 mm thickness and more and pulses of intensity in the range 1019–1022 W/cm2. The calculations provided an estimate of an absolute number of positrons and the ratio of electrons and positrons emerging from the target. The thickness of the target is scaled in order to find an optimal thickness that could provide a neutral electron-positron beam.

For the classic diffusion description of radiative transfer, the specific intensity can be represented by a small angular deviation of the local Planckian equilibrium. In a transparent media, the angular anisotropy becomes strong and one has to solve the general transfer equation. We propose a hierarchy of models that can describe the regime that lies between those two limits. Every member of this family is hyperbolic, flux-limited, and possesses a locally dissipated entropy. This hierarchy also formally recovers the diffusion limit. This study demonstrates that the two-polynomial model is already capable of capturing strong anisotropies.

The Rayleigh–Taylor instability (RTI) of a laser-accelerated ablative surface of a thin plasma layer in an inertial fusion energy (IFE) target with incompressible electrically conducting plasma in the presence of a transverse magnetic field is investigated using linear stability analysis. A simple theory based on Stokes-lubrication approximation is proposed. It is shown that the effect of a transverse magnetic field is to reduce the growth rate of RTI considerably over the value it would have in the absence of a magnetic field. This is useful in the extraction of IFE efficiently.

Ion–electron two-stream instabilities in high intensity heavy ion fusion beams, described self-consistently by the nonlinear Vlasov–Maxwell equations, are studied using a three-dimensional multispecies perturbative particle simulation method. Large-scale parallel particle simulations are carried out using the recently developed Beam Equilibrium, Stability, and Transport (BEST) code. For a parameter regime characteristic of heavy ion fusion drivers, simulation results show that the most unstable mode of the ion–electron two-stream instability has a dipole-mode structure, and the linear growth rate decreases with increasing axial momentum spread of the beam particles due to Landau damping by the axial momentum spread of the beam ions in the longitudinal direction.

High-intensity pulsed ion beam (HIPIB) technology is developed as an advanced manufacturing method for components with improved wear, corrosion and/or fatigue performance, etc. Robust HIPIB equipment with stable repetitive operation, long-lifetime, and easy maintenance are desired for industrial applications, on which stability of ion beam parameters is critical to achieve consistent result of reproducibility. Here, magnetically insulated ion diodes (MIDs) as ion source with durable graphite anode are investigated in a simple self-magnetic field configuration under repetitive operation. Influence of background pressure on ion beam generation and transportation is emphasized since ion beam sources were intrinsically a vacuum-based system. Comparative experiments were conducted on two types of HIPIB equipment, that is, TEMP-6 and TEMP-4M, differing in vacuum packages where turbo-molecular pump or oil diffusion pump was used. Both the HIPIB equipments are operated on a bipolar pulse mode, that is, a first negative pulse of 150–200 kV with pulse duration 450–500 ns to generate anode plasma on explosive electron emission, and a second positive pulse of 200–250 kV with 120 ns to accelerate the ions. Ion beam energy density up to 8 J/cm2 is achievable using MIDs of geometrical focusing configuration, and the total energy, energy density distribution along cross-section, deflection and divergence, and charge neutralization of the ion beams are assessed under background pressures in a wide range of two orders of magnitude, that is, 1–100 mPa. No appreciable change in the parameters is observed up to 50 mPa, and merely a slight increase in the beam deflection from about ±3 mm to about ±4 mm at the focal point over 50 mPa. The stability of ion beam at the varied pressure is mainly facilitated by the higher pressure up to several Pa in anode–cathode gap during plasma generation and good neutralizing effect for ion beam transportation.

Above-threshold ionization (ATI) is one of the most fundamental processess when atoms or molecules are subjected to intense laser fields. Analysis of ATI process in intense laser fields by a Wigner-distribution-like (WDL) function is reviewed in this paper. The WDL function is used to obtain various time-related distributions, such as time-energy distribution, ionization time distribution, and time-emission angle distribution and so on, of atoms in laser field pulses with different laser parameters. For the linearly polarized laser pulses, the time-energy distribution intuitively shows from a quantum point of view the relationship between the ionization moment and the final energy and clearly reveals the origin of interference structures in the photoelectron spectrum. In particular, for linearly polarized few-cycle laser pulses, all calculated distributions show the dependence of electron behavior on the ionization time, emission direction, and carrier-envelope phase (CEP). For elliptically polarized few-cycle pulses, we calculate the angular distribution, ionization time distribution, and time-emission distribution, which are compared with the semiclassical calculations. Analysis shows that the offset angle (difference between positions of the peaks in the angular distributions obtained by two methods) in the angular distributions does not correspond to the offset time (difference between positions of the peaks in the ionization time distributions obtained by two methods) in the ionization time distributions, which implies that the attosecond angular streaking technique based on this correspondence between the offset angle and time is in principle inaccurate. Furthermore, the offset time cannot be interpreted as tunneling time.

The effect of the propagation of a ring-rippled laser beam in the presence of relativistic and ponderomotive non-linearities on the excitation of ion-acoustic wave (IAW) and resulting stimulated Brillouin backscattering in collisionless plasma at relativistic powers is studied. To understand the nature of propagation of the ring ripple-like instability, a paraxial-ray approach has been invoked in which all the relevant parameters correspond to a narrow range around the irradiance maximum of the ring ripple. Modified coupled equations for growth of ring ripple in the plasma, generations of IAW and back-stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) are derived from fluid equations. These coupled equations are solved analytically and numerically to study the intensity of ring-rippled laser beam and excited IAW as well as back reflectivity of SBS in the plasma for various established laser and plasma parameters. It is found that the back reflectivity of SBS is enhanced due to the strong coupling between ring-rippled laser beam and the excited IAW. The results also show that the back reflectivity of SBS reduce for higher intensity of the laser beam.

This paper presents the results of a statistical and correlation analysis of the energy and energy density of an ion beam formed by a self-magnetically insulated diode with an explosive emission cathode. The experiments were carried out with the TEMP-4M accelerator operating in double-pulse mode: plasma formation occurs during the first pulse (negative polarity, 300–500 ns, 100–150 kV), and ion extraction and acceleration during the second pulse (positive polarity, 120 ns, 250–300 kV). Various arrangements of diodes have been investigated: strip focusing and planar diodes, a conical focusing diode and a spiral diode. The total ion beam energy was measured using both a calorimeter and an infrared camera and the beam energy density was measured by the thermal imaging and acoustic diagnostics. The correlation analysis showed that ion current density is only weakly dependent on the accelerating voltage and other output parameters of the accelerator, with the coefficient of determination <0.3. At the same time, in this paper, we have identified that the total energy of the beam and the energy density is strongly dependant on the accelerator output parameters, since the coefficient of determination >0.9. The mechanism governing stabilization of the beam energy density from shot to shot was discovered and attributed to formation of the neutral component in ion beam as being due to charge exchange between accelerated ions and neutral molecules from a neutral layer near the anode surface. Implementation using a self-magnetically insulated diode with an explosive-emission cathode, having an operational lifetime of up to 106 shots, has promising prospects for various technological applications.

Obtaining an X-ray laser emission from plasmas, created and driven by an intense IR laser, has been pursued at the Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Atomique et Ionique (LSAI) for several years. At present, we operate various types of X-ray lasers driven by IR laser pulses of different durations (600 ps, 100 ps, and 600 ps/1 ps). A review of different techniques used at the LSAI to produce a strongly amplified emission using the collisional excitation pumping is presented. In the second part of this paper, to illustrate the potential of the X-ray lasers for applications, we present the main results obtained with an X-ray laser emitting at 21.2 nm in a study of surface defects of a niobium cathode, induced by strong electrical fields. We also describe a novel imaging interferometry device using an X-ray laser as a source and designed as a tool for high-resolution diagnostic of dense plasmas.

By means of a new two-dimensional three-temperature hydrodynamical code we considered the burning of the deuterium fuel with a small amount of a catalytic 3He in a cylindrical channel. To reduce the requirements for an ignition heavy ion beam we used an irradiated DT tablet (Jbeam = 4·106 TW/g, Ebeam = 0.5 MJ). We received the steady burning wave for the parameter ρr [gsim ] 8–10 g/cm2 with a gain coefficient G [gsim ] 30 in comparison with such parameters for the DT fuel G ∼ 140 at ρr = 0.5 g/cm2. Upon reducing the parameter ρr ∼ 4 g/cm2, the burning wave disappears moving along a channel. A part of the deuterium fuel burns with a reduced gain coefficient of 3–5. In the case of large fuel densities ρ = 100 g/cm3, our estimates show extremely large requirements for a compression beam 450–750 MJ for ρr ∼ 4 g/cm2.

Simple arguments are used to construct a model to explain the conversion efficiency of absorbed laser energy into soft X-rays from laser-irradiated targets. In this model, we postulate that the energy available for conversion is bounded at some low irradiance limit by heat conduction away from the laser heated spot, while at some high irradiance limit it is bounded by the energy lost in plasma blowoff. Consequently, at some appropriate laser intensity, where the sum energy of the conduction and blowoff losses is at a minimum, the X-ray conversion efficiency should reach a maximum. A specific example for gold disk targets irradiated by 0·53 μm laser light will be treated. Simple heuristic scalings of blowoff and conduction as functions of laser intensity are obtained.

The evolution of thin foils accelerated over distances much greater than their in-flight thickness has been studied for a classical, low power density regime (5 × 1012 and 2 × 1013 W/cm2 at λ = 1.054 μm, 0.15 THz bandwidth). Two illumination modes have been used, one of these being based on a near-field, multi-lens array ISI smoothing, the other on focusing by F/1 aspherical lenses. The results seem to be encouraging with regard to the possibility of getting smooth, spatially uniform acceleration over distances of the order of 100 × IFFT (In-Flight-Foil Thickness). The experiments with nonsmoothed beams have shown a sort of refractive interchange stabilization for the initial on-target imprinting of the illumination non-uniformities.

A spherical target irradiated by laser beams located at 49o and 131° with respect to the polar axis has been considered. The illumination model has been used to evaluate the irradiation non-uniformity assuming circular and elliptical super-Gaussian laser intensity profiles and the irradiation scheme has been optimized by means of the polar direct drive technique. A parametric study has been performed providing the irradiation non-uniformity as a function of the polar direct drive displacement and of the laser intensity profile parameters. Moreover, two-dimensional axis-symmetric hydrodynamic simulations have been performed for a plastic sphere irradiated by laser beams characterized by a constant flat temporal power pulse. In these simulations, the front of the inward shock wave has been tracked providing the time-evolution of any non-uniformity. The results provided by the two methods — illumination model and hydrodynamic data — have been compared and it is found that the illumination model reproduces the main behavior exhibited by the hydrodynamic data. The two models provide compatible values for the optimum polar direct drive parameter and similar optimal super-Gaussian profiles.

The symmetry of heavy ion driven inertial confinement fusion targets is investigated with a two-dimensional Eulerian hydrodynamic code. The importance of the beam geometry is studied. The HIBALL design in its present form seems to inhibit a spherical implosion of the target. It is shown that the beam angle in the HIBALL geometry should be about 35 degrees.

The final beam transport in the reactor chamber for heavy ion fusion in preformed plasma channels offers many attractive advantages compared to other transport modes. In the past few years, experiments at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) accelerator facility have addressed the creation and investigation of discharge plasmas, designed for the transport of intense ion beams. Stable, self-standing channels of 50 cm length with currents up to 55 kA were initiated in low-pressure ammonia gas by a CO2-laser pulse along the channel axis before the discharge is triggered. The channels were characterized by several plasma diagnostics including interferometry and spectroscopy. We also present first experiments on laser-guided intersecting discharges.

The energy of protons accelerated by ultra-intense lasers in the target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) mechanism can be greatly enhanced by the laser parameter optimization. We propose to investigate the optimization of laser parameters for proton acceleration using double laser pulses in TNSA mechanism. The sheath field generation at the rear side of the target is significantly affected by the introduction of second laser pulse in TNSA mechanism, and consequently, the energy of the accelerated protons is also modified. The second laser pulse was introduced with different delays to study its impact on proton acceleration. Our study shows that the interplay of laser intensity and pulse duration of both laser pulses affects the proton acceleration. It was found that the proton maximum energy is the function of both laser intensity and pulse duration. A number of simulations have been performed to obtain maximum proton energy data under different combinations of laser intensity and pulse duration for the two laser pulses. The simulation results account for the underline physics for the proton bunch energy and the sheath field as a function of pulse intensity and pulse delay.

In this study, we have spectroscopically investigated the plasma generated by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser operating at its fundamental wavelength of 1064 nm focused on magnesium (Mg) and titanium (Ti) target samples in the air under atmospheric pressure. We employed circular cavities of radii (2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 mm) and a square cavity to investigate the cavity confinement effect on the spectral emission intensities of the plasmas. We observed that the circular cavity of radius 2.5 mm had the maximum signal enhancement, and this can be attributed to the compression of the plasma and reheating by the reflected shock waves. The maximum enhancement factor of the Mg I-518.4 nm line was reached at approximately 3.8, 3.4, and 2.8 with a circular cavity of radius 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 mm, respectively, at a delay time of 350 ns and a laser energy of 350 mJ. By applying varying external magnetic fields (0.47, 0.62, 0.91, and 1.23 T) across the generated plasma, the plasma parameters such as electron temperature and number density have been investigated. From our results, we observed that the radius of the cavity had a tremendous effect on the enhancement of the emission signal intensities. We also found that the increase in the electron temperature and the number density can be attributed to the increase in the applied magnetic field and the laser energy. From our calculations, the value of β, which was less than 1 for all the cases, confirms that there was a plasma confinement at the presence of the magnetic field.

The proton-boron (p 11 B) reaction is regarded as the holy grail of advanced fusion fuels, where the primary reaction produces 3 energetic α particles. However, due to the high nuclear bounding energy and bremsstrahlung energy losses, energy gain from the p 11 B fusion is hard to achieve in thermal fusion conditions. Owing to advances in intense laser technology, the p11 B fusion has drawn renewed attention by using an intense laser-accelerated proton beam to impact a boron-11 target. As one of the most influential works in this field, Labaune et al. first experimentally found that states of boron (solid or plasma) play an important role in the yield of α particles. This exciting experimental finding rouses an attempt to measure the nuclear fusion cross section in a plasma environment. However, up to now, there is still no quantitative explanation. Based on large-scale, fully kinetic computer simulations, the inner physical mechanism of yield increment is uncovered, and a quantitative explanation is given. Our results indicate the yield increment is attributed to the reduced energy loss of the protons under the synergetic influences of degeneracy effects and collective electromagnetic effects. Our work may serve as a reference for not only analyzing or improving further experiments of the p 11 B fusion but also investigating other beam-plasma systems, such as ion-driven inertial confinement fusions.

Most of the high-energy laser systems deliver temporally super-Gaussian-shaped laser pulses. The propagation properties of this kind of pulses in a nonlinear medium are studied in this paper. There is Stokes component in the sideband spectrum of super-Gaussian-shaped pulses, and the frequency difference between the Stokes component and the center frequency is equals to the Brillouin frequency of the nonlinear medium. When the laser is reflected by optical elements in the light path, Stokes component in the reflected light can be amplified by the subsequent part of the laser pulse and excite stimulated Brillouin scattering (self-pumped SBS). The self-pumped SBS is studied theoretically and experimentally, and the experimental results agreed well with the calculated results. The simulation results show that lower-order super-Gaussian-shaped pulses are more suitable for suppressing the self-pumped SBS and of great benefit to the energy delivering of the high-power laser pulses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to experimentally demonstrate the self-pumped SBS of high-power super-Gaussian-shaped laser pulses.

This communication presents a comparison of two cases to study the process of laser beam propagation and Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) in laser plasma interaction. These two cases are, with imposing the restriction of paraxial approximation on the laser beam and, relaxing this restriction up to a certain extent. In this work, the study done by Sharma et al. (2009) using paraxial approximation is extended by taking contribution of the off-axial rays in the laser beam profile. The spitted profile of the laser beam is obtained due to uneven focusing of the off-axial rays and its effect on localization of the ion acoustic wave (IAW) has been studied. Including the off-axial part of the laser beam semi-analytical solution of the nonlinear coupled IAW equation has been found and this is examined that off-axial part affects background densities. The nonlinear coupling between the laser beam and IAW is severely affected by modified profile of the laser beam. Further, it is investigated that the SBS is also influenced by this coupling process. Therefore, the reflectivity of SBS has been compared with and without contribution of off-axial rays. A notable change is found in the magnitude of SBS reflectivity in modified-paraxial case in comparison to the paraxial case.