Frequency-dependent opacities are determined for high-Z plasma taking into account splitting of the energy levels with orbital quantum number l. The energy levels are calculated with the help of the screened hydrogenic model generalized by Perrot for l splitting. Oscillator strengths for bound-bound and bound-free transitions are computed from hydrogenic wave functions with two different screened nuclear charges. The average atom model is used to determine the plasma state, with provision for continuum lowering and pressure ionization. Explicit results for extinction coefficients of gold plasma with ρ = 0.1 g/cm3 and T = 100−500 eV are compared with calculations neglecting l splitting. Considerably enhanced absorption at lower photon energies (50–300 eV) is obtained when taking l splitting into account. Planck and Rosseland mean opacities are also calculated and compared with data contained in the SESAME opacity library. Remarkable agreement is found without any artificial line broadening or band smearing.

We propose a model for calculating free-free absorption (inverse bremsstrahlung) in hot dense plasmas. This model writes the total Gaunt factor as the product of a static factor and a dynamic factor. The treatment of the static part is based on a relation between the absorption cross section and the elastic scattering cross section, which is exact for very low frequencies and becomes asymptotically correct when the Born approximation is valid. Generalizing this relation provides an expression of the absorption cross section Q(k, k′), which depends on the initial and final wave vectors k and k′, as an integral of a unique function S*(k). The calculation of nondiagonal matrix elements (k ≠ k′) is thus avoided. The analytic summation of the high angular momenta in the partial wave expansion of the cross section makes possible to apply the model in the limit of weak electron screening. The collective effects are accounted for in a dynamic Gaunt factor and in an index of refraction different from unity. Numerical results for the Gaunt factor in cesium are presented and discussed. An application to the mean opacities of carbon is also shown.

The effect of laser-irradiance on the surface morphology and laser induced breakdown spectroscopy of zinc has been investigated by employing Nd:YAG laser (wavelength λ = 1064 nm, pulse duration t ~ 10 ns, and repetition rate = 10 Hz) under ambient environment of argon at a pressure of 20 Torr. For this purpose, zinc targets were exposed to various laser irradiances ranging from 13 GW/cm2 to 100 GW/cm2. Scanning electron microscope analysis has been performed to analyze the surface modification of irradiated zinc targets. Scanning electron microscope analysis revealed the formation of various kinds of structures such as ripples, cones, cavities, and wave like ridges at the center and peripheral regions of ablated zinc. In the central ablated region with increasing laser irradiance, the growth of distinct and well defined ripples is observed. Further increase in irradiance makes the appearance of these ripples diffusive and narrow. In order to correlate the plasma parameters with the surface modification, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy analysis has also been performed. The electron temperature and number density of zinc plasma have been evaluated at various laser irradiances. For both plasma parameters, an increasing trend up to a certain value of laser irradiance is observed which is due to enhanced energy deposition. Afterword a decreasing trend is achieved which is attributed to the shielding effect. With further increase in irradiance a saturation stage comes and almost no change in plasma parameters is observed. This saturation is explainable on the basis of the formation of a self-regulating regime near the target surface. A strong correlation between surface modification and plasma parameters is established.

In this work, we introduce a new ellipsoid model to describe bubble acceleration of electrons and discuss the required conditions of forming it. We have found that the electron trajectory is strongly related to background electron energy and cavity potential ratio. In the ellipsoid cavity regime, the quality of the electron beam is improved in contrast to other methods, such as that using periodic plasma wakefield, spherical cavity regime, and plasma channel guided acceleration. The trajectory of the electron motion can be described as hyperbola, parabola, or ellipsoid path. It is influenced by the position and energy of the electrons and the electrostatic potential of the cavity. In the experimental part of this work, a 20 TW power and 30 fs laser pulse was focused on a pulsed He gas jet. We have focused the laser pulse in the best matched point above the nozzle gas to obtain a stable ellipsoid bubble. The finding of the optimum points will be described in analytical details.

The interaction of a cylindrical converging shock wave with an initially perturbed gaseous interface is studied experimentally. The cylindrical converging shock is generated in an ordinary shock tube but with a specially designed test section, in which the incident planar shock wave is directly converted into a cylindrical one. Two kinds of typical initial interfaces involving gas bubble and gas cylinder are employed. A high-speed video camera combined with schlieren or planar Mie scattering photography is utilized to capture the evolution process of flow structures. The distribution of baroclinic vorticity on the interface induced by the cylindrical shock and the reflected shock from the center of convergence results in distinct phenomena. In the gas bubble case, the shock focusing and the jet formation are observed and the turbulent mixing of two fluids is promoted because of the gradually changed shock strength and complex shock structures in the converging part. In the gas cylinder case, a counter-rotating vortex pair is formed after the impact of the converging shock and its rotating direction may be changed when interacting with the reflected shock for a relatively long reflection distance. The variations of the interface displacements and structural dimensions with time are further measured. It is found that these quantities are different from those in the planar counterpart because of the shock curvature, the Mach number effect and the complex shock reflection within the converging shock tube test section. Therefore, the experiments reported here exhibit the great potential of this experimental method in study of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability induced by converging shock waves.

In this paper we present the analytical description of two processes dealing with the skin-layer ponderomotive acceleration method of fast ion generation by a short laser pulse: ion density rippling in the underdense plasma region and generation of ion beams by trapped electromagnetic field in plasma. Some numerical examples of hydrodynamic simulation illustrating these processes are shown. The effect of using the laser pulse consisting of different frequency components on the ion density rippling and on phenomena connected with trapped electromagnetic field is analyzed.

The paper is directed to the study of high-temperature plasma and ablation plasma formation as well as efficiency of the laser energy transfer to solid targets irradiated by laser pulses with intensities of 1–50 PW/cm2 and duration of 200–300 ps, i.e., at conditions corresponding to the characteristics of the laser spike designed to generate the igniting shock wave in the shock ignition concept. The experiments have been performed at Prague Asterix Laser System. The iodine laser delivered 250 ps (full width at half maximum) pulses with the energy in the range of 100–600 J at the first (λ1 = 1.315 µm) and third (λ3 = 0.438 µm) harmonic frequencies. The focal spot radius of the laser beam on the surface of Al or Cu targets made was gradually decreased from 160 to 40 µm. The diagnostic data collected using three-frame interferometry, X-ray spectroscopy, and crater replica technique were interpreted by two-dimensional numerical and analytical modeling which included generation and transport of fast electrons. The coupling parameter Iλ2 was varied in the range of 1 × 1014−8 × 1016 Wμm2/cm2 covering the regimes of weak to intense fast electron generation. The dominant contribution of fast electron energy transfer into the ablation process and shock wave generation was found when using the first harmonic laser radiation, the focal spot radius of 40–100 µm, and the laser energy of 300–600 J.

A double shell z-pinch with an axial magnetic field is considered as a K-shell plasma radiation source. One-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics calculations performed suggest that this scheme holds promise for the production of the K-shell radiation of krypton (hν ≈ 12–17 keV). As a first step in verifying the advantages of this scheme, experiments have been performed to optimize a neon double-shell gas puff with an axial magnetic yield for the K-shell yield and power. The experiments show that the application of an axial magnetic field makes it possible to increase the K-shell radiation power and reduce the shot-to-shot spread in the K-shell yield. Comparisons between the experiments and modeling are made and show good agreement.

An overview on current trends in stimulated Brillouin scattering and optical phase conjugation is given. This report is based on the results of the “Second International Workshop on stimulated Brillouin scattering and phase conjugation” held in Potsdam/Germany in September 2007. The properties of stimulated Brillouin scattering are presented for the compensation of phase distortions in combination with novel laser technology like ceramics materials but also for e.g., phase stabilization, beam combination, and slow light. Photorefractive nonlinear mirrors and resonant refractive index gratings are addressed as phase conjugating mirrors in addition.

We report on experiments aimed at the generation and characterization of solid density plasmas at the free-electron laser FLASH in Hamburg. Aluminum samples were irradiated with XUV pulses at 13.5 nm wavelength (92 eV photon energy). The pulses with duration of a few tens of femtoseconds and pulse energy up to 100 µJ are focused to intensities ranging between 1013 and 1017 W/cm2. We investigate the absorption and temporal evolution of the sample under irradiation by use of XUV and optical spectroscopy. We discuss the origin of saturable absorption, radiative decay, bremsstrahlung and atomic and ionic line emission. Our experimental results are in good agreement with simulations.

The development of high-intensity lasers has opened the field of nuclear reactions initiated by laser-accelerated particles. One possible application is the production of aneutronic fusion reactions for clean fusion energy production. We propose an innovative scheme based on the use of two targets and present the first results obtained with the ELFIE facility (at the LULI Laboratory) for the proton–boron-11 (p–11B) fusion reaction. A proton beam, accelerated by the Target Normal Sheat Acceleration mechanism using a short laser pulse (12 J, 350 fs, 1.056 µm, 1019 W cm−2), is sent onto a boron target to initiate fusion reactions. The number of reactions is measured with particle diagnostics such as CR39 track-detectors, active nuclear diagnostic, Thomson Parabola, magnetic spectrometer, and time-of-flight detectors that collect the fusion products: the α-particles. Our experiment shows promising results for this scheme. In the present paper, we discuss its principle and advantages compared with another scheme that uses a single target and heating mechanisms directly with photons to initiate the same p–11B fusion reaction.

This article presents a review of X-ray spectroscopic diagnostic and measurement techniques as applied to laser plasma interaction and laser fusion studies. As a matter of definition we restrict our attention to the range of a several hundred eV to about 100 keV. We deal with both the basic measurement concepts and the instrumental techniques. First a brief review of the physical phenomena and parameter ranges involved is given. We then deal with specific X-ray spectroscopic instruments and methods that are useful in laser plasma X-ray spectroscopy. A discussion is given of various modeling techniques and how they can be compared with experimental measurements.

This paper describes a solid state laser concept that scales to MW levels of burst power and MJ of burst energy and burst durations measured in seconds. During lasing action, waste heat is purposely stored in the heat capacity of the active medium. The paper outlines the principal scaling laws of key operational features and arrives at a conceptual design example of the laser head as well as a mobile laser system.

In this work, experiments were performed to study the effect of cathode materials on the amplitude of the super-short avalanche electron beam (SAEB) current and X-ray density during discharges in atmospheric-pressure air. In the experiments, discharges were generated by three nanosecond-pulse generators in air gaps between a plane anode and a tubular cathode made of different metals. The output pulse of the three generators had a rise time of 0.3, 1, 15 ns, and a full width at half maximum of 1, 2, 30–40 ns, respectively. For the generators with pulse rise-time of 0.3 and 1 ns, the cathodes used in these experiments were made of stainless steel, permalloy, titanium, niobium, copper, brass, and aluminum. For the generator with pulse rise-time of 15 ns, the cathodes were made of stainless steel, titanium, copper, and aluminum. When the rise time of the applied pulse is 0.3 ns, our experimental results show that the amplitude of the voltage across the gap depends on the cathode material and reaches its maximum value when a stainless steel cathode is used. It is also observed that, under such situation, the maximum amplitudes of the SAEB current occur at maximum voltages across the gap when all other factors are equal. Furthermore, the amplitude of the SAEB current hereof is found to depend not only on the material of the sharp edge of the tubular cathode, but also on the material of the side surface of the tubular cathode. When the rise time of the applied pulse is 1 ns, the experimental results show that the average number of electrons in SAEB is also affected by the cathode materials. In addition, in the case that the rise time of the voltage pulse is 15 ns and the gap spacing is 8 cm, the experimental results show that the cathode material has no effect on the voltage amplitude across the gap and the X-ray density. The increase of the pulse repetition frequency from 250 to 500 Hz under such condition can lead to a three-fold increase in X-ray density in a repetitive pulsed mode.

It is shown that the effective hot electron temperature, Thot, associated with the energetic electrons produced during the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with thin solid targets is dependent on the thickness of the target. We report the first direct experimental observations of electron energy spectra obtained from laser-solid interactions that indicates the reflexing of electrons in thin targets results in higher electron temperatures than those obtained in thick target interactions. This can occur for targets whose thickness, xt, is less than about half the range of an electron at the energy associated with the initial effective electron temperature, provided the laser pulse length is at least cτp > 2xt. A simple theoretical model that demonstrates the physical mechanism behind this enhanced heating is presented and the results of computer simulations are used to verify the model.

A high voltage pulse Tesla transformer with a coupling coefficient of 0.75 was designed and experimentally investigated. The transformer was employed to charge a spiral water pulse forming line (PFL) in a high current electron beam accelerator, and was featured by its compactness, stability, and reliability. When the primary input voltage is 55 kV, the transformer can charge the PFL to 720 kV with an energy conversion efficiency of 36%. The formulas for calculating the primary and secondary inductances of the transformer were deduced, with which the main parameters of the transformer were calculated theoretically. The distributions for electrical and magnetic fields in the transformer were obtained by the simulations of calculation. In addition, the process of an accelerator of the transformer charging a spiral PFL was simulated through the Pspice software to get the waveform of charging voltage, the diode voltage, and diode current of accelerator. The theoretical and simulated results agree with the experimental results.

A 9 μm thick aluminium foil is accelerated to a velocity of about 160 km/s by a laser of 0.26 μm wavelength and intensity of 1015 W/cm2 and collides with an aluminium impact foil. The measurement of the velocity of the induced shock wave in the impact foil, using a step method at the rear of the impact foil, gives pressures in the multi-hundred megabar range. The dynamics and constraints of this shock wave are presented and the effect of X-ray preheating, which can be important at this laser wavelength, is discussed.

An ultra-wideband radiation source based on the excitation of a 64-element array of combined antennas by a generator of bipolar voltage pulses with the length of 1 ns, amplitude of 200 kV and pulse repetition rate of 100 Hz has been designed and studied. The peak power of the voltage pulse was 3.2 GW. The effective potential of the ultra-wideband source radiation reached 4.3 MV.

Intense laser-beam interactions with preformed plasma, preceding the laser-target interactions, significantly influence both the ion and X-ray generation. It is due to the laser pulse (its total length, the shape of the front edge, its background, the contrast, the radial homogeneity) as well as plasma (density, temperature) properties. Generation of the super fast (FF) ion groups is connected with a presence of non-linear processes. Saturated maximum of the charge states (independently on the laser intensity) is ascribed to the constant limit radius of the self-focused laser beam. Its longitudinal structure is considered as a possible explanation for the course of some experimental dependencies obtained.

The development of very high power laser opens up new horizons in a various field, such as protontherapy in medicine or laser-matter interaction in physics. The Target Normal Sheath Acceleration phenomenon is used in the first one. After the laser-matter impact, a plasma is generated, and free electrons move forward. It creates an electrostatic field, which can accelerate protons at the rear side of the target. The generated beam can be able to contain energetic protons with a large spectrum(1–200 MeV). This energy distribution depends on the laser power and the nature of the target. This technique has been validated by accelerating protons coming from hydrogenated contaminant (mainly water) at the rear of metallic target up to 58 MeV at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory using the Nova Petawatt laser. However, several laser teams would like to study this interaction with pure targets. In this context, the low temperature laboratory, at CEA-Grenoble has developed a cryostat able to continuously produce a thin hydrogen ribbon (50 and 100 μm thick). A new extrusion concept, without any moving part has been carried out, using only the thermodynamic properties of the fluid. First results and perspectives are presented in this paper.