Taking into account the emission and absorption of resonance radiation in a recombining laser-produced plasma of intermediate density, the system of rate equations for the population densities coupled with the radiative transfer equation is approximately treated. In the case of spatially varying absorption we derive an approximate form of the rate equation determining the population density of the upper resonance level. By applying this relation to an axially symmetric plasma a simple formula that describes the effect of radiation reabsorption on the spatial behaviour of the population density is obtained.

A steady-state analysis of Gaussian laser beam in a nonlinear medium has been presented. It is shown that an oscillatory self-guided beam (whose width is oscillating with the propagation distance) in a saturable nonlinear medium can be uptapered by material gain. Moreover, the present investigation suggests that under certain conditions it is possible to obtain a stationary self-guided beam (planar wavefront) in a nonabsorbing medium from an initially oscillatory (nonplanar wavefront) beam in a nonabsorbing medium by uptapering it in a gain medium.

The problem of matching an ion beam delivered by a high-intensity ion source with an accelerator is considered. The experimental results of highly charged ion beam transport with space-charge compensation by electrons are presented. A tungsten thermionic cathode is used as a source of electrons for beam compensation. An increase of ion beam current density by a factor of 25 is obtained as a result of space-charge compensation at a distance of 3 m from the extraction system. The process of ion beam space-charge compensation, requirements for a source of electrons, and the influence of recombination losses in a spacecharge-compensated ion beam are discussed.

This paper will present the nonlinearity and dispersion effects involved in propagation of optical solitons, which can be understood by using a numerical routine to solve the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE). Here, Mathematica v5© (Wolfram, 2003) is used to explore in depth several features of optical solitons formation and propagation. These numerical routines were implemented through the use of Mathematica v5© and the results give a very clear idea of this interesting and important practical phenomenon. It is hoped that this work will open up an important new approach to the cause, effect, and correction of interference from secondary radiation found in the uses of soliton waves in lasers and in optical fiber telecommunication. It is believed that these results will be of considerable use in any work or research in this field and in self-focusing properties of the soliton (Osman et al., 2004a, 2004b; Hora, 1991). In a previous paper on this topic (Beech & Osman, 2004), it was shown that solitons of NLSE radiate. This paper goes on from there to show that these radiations only occur in solitons derived from cubic, or odd-numbered higher orders of NLSE, and that there are no such radiations from solitons of quadratic, or even-numbered higher order of NLSE. It is anticipated that this will stimulate research into practical means to control or eliminate such radiations.

A joule level of XeF(C-A) laser optically pumped by a sectioned surface discharge was developed. The irradiative intensity of pumping source was diagnosed by calculating XeF2 photo-dissociation wave evolvement which was photographed by a framing camera. The photon flux in the wavelength region of 140 to 170nm is about 5 × 1023 photon s−1cm−2, that corresponds to the irradiative brightness temperature of more than 25000 K. The laser experiments were carried out in different conditions. The maximum laser output energy of 2.5 J was obtained with the total conversion efficiency of 0.1%.

The electron emission yield γ induced by Ne2+ and O2+ impacting on a clean tungsten surface has been measured. The range of projectile energy is from 3 keV/u to 14 keV/u. The total electron yield gradually increases with the projectile velocity. It is found simultaneously that the total electron yield for O2+ is larger than the total electron yield for Ne2+, which is opposite to the results for higher projectile velocity. After considering the contribution from recoiling atoms to the energy distribution and electron emission yield, we find that recoiling atoms are of crucial importance in electron emission in our energy range. Thus, the unexpected results in our experiment can be explained successfully.

An experimental investigation into the asymptotic stage of the separation of the turbulized mixtures of two fluids with densities ratio n = 3 has been carried out. The turbulized mixtures resulted from Rayleigh–Taylor instability when the contact boundary between two fluids was moved under an acceleration. At a certain instant of time, the system changes from the gravitationally unstable mode to the gravitationally stable one by the way of changing of the acceleration sign. During the ampoule motion with the investigated fluids at the gravitationally stable mode, the depth of penetration of the heavy fluid into the light one was registered with the photographic method. The length of the ampoule way at the gravitationally stable mode has been fixed so that the final (asymptotic) stage of the separation could be registered. At the result of themeasurements, it has been determined the separation process at the asymptotic stage has the same dimensionless velocity asat the initial stage.

This paper presents the design of the four-channel Nd: glass high power laser system in the Kaliski Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (IPPLM) in its optimized version, based on a theoretical analysis of propagation of radiation in the real laser channel.

Patterns of absorption and reflection of an ultrashort laser pulse by plasma with a solid-state density, which are realized in the mode of the normal skin effect, are studied. If the pulse power is so high to provide the electron heating during the time shorter than the reciprocal fundamental frequency, a nonlinear suppression of absorption takes place and the spectrum of the reflected radiation contains odd harmonics of the fundamental frequency.

Powerful lasers have the potential to be used for power sources of the high energy particle accelerators. However, we have to convert the transverse wave into a longitudinal one which can trap the charged particles in the wave trough to accelerate them. In order to obtain a high field-gradient in an accelerator, several new concepts have been proposed. One of them is a beat wave accelerator (BWA) which uses a nonlinear optical mixing of two laser beams. Another concept is a Cross Field Acceleration (or a Vp × B acceleration) scheme, in which the trapped particles in the wave trough are accelerated along the wavefront and across the static magnetic field applied externally. An overview is presented including some new results.

Irregularities on the outer surface of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) capsules accelerated by laser irradiation are amplified by the Rayleigh–Taylor instability (RTI), which occurs at the ablation front (ablative RTI), where density gradient and acceleration have the same direction. The analytic stability theory of subsonic ablation fronts, for Froude number larger than one, shows that the main stabilization mechanisms are blowoff convection (rocket effect equilibrating the gravity force) and ablation (Sanz 1994; Betti et al. 1996). Blowoff convection and ablation are enhanced if the ablator material is mixed with high-Z dopants. The latest enhances radiation emission setting the ablator on a higher adiabat, lowering its density, and increasing the ablation velocity. When such an ablator is used to push a solid deuterium-tritium (D–T) shell, the D–T-ablator interface becomes classically unstable. The aim of this paper is to investigate the stability of such a configuration, represented by a low-density ablator pushing a heavier shell, and study the interplay between the classical and ablative RTIs occurring simultaneously. The stability analysis is carried out using a sharp boundary model (Piriz et al. 1997), which contains all the basic physics of the RTI in ICF.

A longitudinal compression is indispensable in a final stage of the heavy ion driver system using a particle accelerator. For the beam compression, an induction buncher applies the bunching voltage so as to make a considerable velocity tilt between the head and the tail of the beam bunch. However, the velocity tilt induces mismatch oscillation of the beam envelope due to the nonconformity between the beam particle velocity and the confinement force of the lens system. At the first step of design works for the beam transport line, the initial phase advance is decided to avoid resonance lines on the tune diagram. However, as the phase advance changes in the buncher by the velocity tilt, the beam bunch reenters in the resonance condition under certain circumstances. The transport region for avoiding the resonance condition is discussed on a phase diagram, as a function of the phase advance and the velocity tilt.

We have studied the interaction of soft X-ray thermal radiation with foam-layered metal targets. The X-radiation was produced by focusing a high energy laser inside a small size hohlraum. An increment in shock pressure was observed with the foam layer as compared to bare metal targets.

A method is proposed to evaluate the power brightness of an intense pulsed ion beam by using a Thomson parabola spectrometer (TPS). In the method, the time-dependent power brightness of each ion species can be determined independently from the density profile of ion tracks. The method is successfully utilized to evaluate the power brightness of ion beams produced in point pinch diode. The brightness of highly ionized carbons of 660 keV and oxygens of 880 keV, and singly ionized molecular ions of 400 keV, are evaluated independently. The total brightness is evaluated to be 3.2 GW/cm2/sr for highly ionized ions, and 1.9 GW/cm2/sr for molecular ions.

It has been recently suggested (Hora & Miley 1984) that in the cannonball scheme of laser compression the pellet may be considered to be compressed by the ‘brute force’ of the radiation pressure. For such a radiation-driven compression, this paper applies an energy balance method to give an equation fixing the radius compression ratio κ which is a key parameter for such intense compressions. A shock model is used to yield specific results. For a square-pulse driving power compressing a spherical pellet with a specific heat ratio of 5/3, a density compression ratio Γ of 27 is computed. Double (stepped) pulsing with linearly rising power enhances Γ to 1750. The value of Γ is not dependent on the absolute magnitude of the piston power, as long as this is large enough. Further enhancement of compression by multiple (stepped) pulsing becomes obvious. The enhanced compression increases the energy gain factor G for a 100 μm DT pellet driven by radiation power of 1016 W from 6 for a square pulse power with 0·5 MJ absorbed energy to 90 for a double (stepped) linearly rising pulse with absorbed energy of 0·4 MJ assuming perfect coupling efficiency.

In the paper, relativistic self-focusing in the interaction of laser beam and plasma with periodical density ripple has been studied by the applied WKB approximation and higher-order paraxial theory. The result shows that under the influence of relativistic nonlinear effect, the dielectric function shows the fierce oscillational variation with similar periodicity, which then leads to the intense relativistic beam self-focusing along the propagation distance, such self-focusing also presents similar periodic variation. Besides, in the plasma with periodical density ripple, the initial density and the density ripple amplitude have obvious influence on self-focusing. When the two factors increase, then there will be more strength self-focusing. Choosing the appropriate initial density and the periodic density parameter is benefit to the formation of the more stable self-focusing.

Transverse stimulated Raman scattering (TSRS) is strongly generated in the third-harmonic-generation crystal potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) and can even damage the KDP crystal in inertial confinement fusion drivers. In this work, a method to suppress TSRS is proposed in which the polarization control plate (PCP) is moved to a new position in the existing optical path. The proposed method can suppress TSRS significantly and doubles the laser threshold intensity in KDP crystal when the order of the PCP is 16. This result is attributed to the reduction of the gain length for the Stokes radiation. The proposed method may also be used to suppress other nonlinear effects, including transverse stimulated Brillouin scattering in large-aperture optical components.

A wide applicaton of high-power braking x-radiation and electron beams is obstructed at present by the absence of compact, screened, inexpensive and reliable generators capable of producing an electron energy of ∼1·5 MeV and a dose rate to objects a few centimeters in size of ∼107 A/kg. This paper presents results from experiments carried out on an X-ray generator with an accelerating voltage of up to 1·8 MV, which meets the above requirements in performance.

An overview of the equations of state (EOS) with a short summary of shock wave experiments with laser induced impact flyer, relevant to EOS study, is presented. The “old-new” ellipsometry is suggested and described for the EOS research. The detection of phase transitions of the first kind (solid-solid) as well as phase transition of the second kind (Curie point as an example) is demonstrated. Furthermore, the temperature measurements are not possible without the knowledge of the emissivity, a parameter that can be measured by using ellipsometry techniques.

When a one-shell three-layer cryogenic target is irradiated by a driver beam of total energy 10 MJ and pulse width 30 ns, the pusher pressure increases to 1013 Pa, accelerating fuel toward target center, and the fuel implosion velocity reaches 3 × 105 m/s. A spherical hollow target plays the role of a supersonic converging nozzle, and the fuel is compressed to 269 times the solid density in the supersonic region and to 3·51 × 104 times in subsonic region. Nonuniform beam-energy-deposition in pusher layer causes nonuniform pusher pressure and hence nonuniform implosion, which reduces fuel compression significantly. The smoothing of pusher pressure by radiative energy transfer, or gas-filled target instead of cryogenic hollow target can be used to reduce the defect of nonuniform implosion. At last, the structure of an indirect driven target is proposed to smooth out pusher pressure in spite of nonuniform beam irradiation.