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John Pasley

Publications and source records attributed to John Pasley.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Laser structured micro-targets generate MeV electron temperature at $4 \times 10^{16}$ W/cm$^2$

Relativistic temperature electrons higher than 0.5 MeV are generated typically with laser intensities of about 10$^{18}$ W/cm$^{2}$. Their generation with high repetition rate lasers that operate at non-relativistic intensities ($\simeq$10$^{16}$ W/cm$^{2}$) is cardinal for the realization of compact, ultra-short, bench-top electron sources. New strategies, capable of exploiting different aspects of laser-plasma interaction, are necessary for reducing the required intensity. We report here, a novel technique of dynamic target structuring of microdroplets, capable of generating 200 keV and 1 MeV electron temperatures at 1/100th of the intensity required by ponderomotive scaling($10^{18}$ W/cm$^2$) to generate relativistic electron temperature. Combining the concepts of pre-plasma tailoring, optimized scale length and micro-optics, this method achieves two-plasmon decay boosted electron acceleration with "non-ideal" ultrashort (25 fs) pulses at $4\times10^{16}$ W/cm$^2$, only. With shot repeatability at kHz, this precise in-situ targetry produces directed, imaging quality beam-like electron emission up to 6 MeV with milli-joule class lasers, that can be transformational for time-resolved, microscopic studies in all fields of science.

physics.plasm-ph

Generation of a strong reverse shock wave in the interaction of a high-contrast high-intensity femtosecond laser pulse with a silicon target

We present ultrafast pump-probe reflectivity and Doppler spectrometry of a silicon target at relativistic laser intensity. We observe an unexpected rise in reflectivity to a peak approximately $\sim$9 ps after the main pulse interaction with the target. This occurs after the reflectivity has fallen off from the initially high "plasma-mirror" phase. Simultaneously measured time-dependent Doppler shift data show an increase in blue shift at the same time. Numerical simulations show that the aforementioned trends in the experimental measurements correspond to a strong shock wave propagating back towards the laser. The relativistic laser-plasma interaction indirectly heats the cool-dense ($n_{e}\geq10^{23} cm^{-3}$ and $T_{e} \sim 10 eV$) target material adjacent to the corona, by hot electron induced return current heating, raising its temperature to around 150eV and causing it to explode violently. The increase in reflectivity is caused by the transient steepening of the plasma density gradient at the probe critical surface due to this explosive behaviour.

physics.plasm-ph