Self-Thomson Backscattering of Ultra-Intense Laser from Thin Foil Target

An electromagnetic solitary structure in attosecond regime is identified, costreaming with electron bunch. It is observed via nonlinear process of Self-Thomson backscattering of an ultra-intense laser from thin foil target. The process is termed as Self-Thomson Backscattering since the counter propagating electron sheets are generated by the drive laser itself. The radiation pressure acceleration model is considered for the interaction of a super-intense linearly polarized laser pulse with a thin foil in one-dimensional (1D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations.

The all-diode-pumped laser system POLARIS——an experimentalist's tool generating ultra-high contrast pulses with high energy

The development,the underlying technology and the current status of the fully diode-pumped solid-state laser system POLARIS is reviewed.Currently,the POLARIS system delivers 4 J energy,144 fs long laser pulses with an ultra-high temporal contrast of 5 × 1012 for the ASE,which is achieved using a so-called double chirped-pulse amplification scheme and cross-polarized wave generation pulse cleaning.By tightly focusing,the peak intensity exceeds 3.5 × 1020 W cm-2.These parameters predestine POLARIS as a scientific tool well suited for sophisticated experiments,as exemplified by presenting measurements of accelerated proton energies.Recently,an additional amplifier has been added to the laser chain.In the ramp-up phase,pulses from this amplifier are not yet compressed and have not yet reached the anticipated energy.Nevertheless,an output energy of 16.6 J has been achieved so far.

New scheme to trigger fusion in a compact magnetic fusion device by combining muon catalysis and alpha heating effects

The application of laser pulses with psec or shorter duration enables nonthermal efficient ultrahigh acceleration of plasma blocks with homogeneous high ion energies exceeding ion current densities of 10^(12) A cm^(-2). The effects of ultrahigh acceleration of plasma blocks with high energy proton beams are proposed for muon production in a compact magnetic fusion device. The proposed new scheme consists of an ignition fusion spark by muon catalyzed fusion(μCF) in a small mirror-like configuration where low temperature D–T plasma is trapped for a duration of 1 μs. This initial fusion spark produces sufficient alpha heating in order to initiate the fusion process in the main device. The use of a multi-fluid global particle and energy balance code allows us to follow the temporal evolution of the reaction rate of the fusion process in the device. Recent progress on the ICAN and IZEST projects for high efficient high power and high repetition rate laser systems allows development of the proposed device for clean energy production. With the proposed approaches,experiments on fusion nuclear reactions and μCF process can be performed in magnetized plasmas in existing kJ/PW laser facilities as the GEKKO-LFEX, the PETAL and the ORION or in the near future laser facilities as the ELI-NP Romanian pillar.