Application of high current DLA-electrons for interdisciplinary research with lasers

Experiments on interaction of ~ 10$^{19}$ W/cm$^{2}$ sub-ps laser pulses with pre-ionized low density foams at PHELIX, GSI demonstrated generation of high-current beams of direct laser accelerated (DLA) electrons with an effective temperature up to 10× higher than the ponderomotive potential and a charge of 50-100 nC of electrons with E > 7.5 MeV. The DLA process appears to be very robust, it doesn’t require high laser contrast and high laser pointing stability and can be used to generate ultra-bright laser-driven sources of particles and radiation of tens of MeV energy already at moderate relativistic laser intensities.

In the talk, a universal character of foam targets for application in different research fields will be discussed. Foams can be used for generation of bright betatron radiation, for ultra-high dose-rate experiments using DLA-electrons (FLASH effect in radio-oncology), and, in combination with µm-thin or mm-thick high-Z convertor foils, for generation of protons, positrons, gamma-rays and neutrons with the world’s highest conversion efficiency and without any changes in the laser system.

3D PIC simulations of the DLA-performance in a long-scale plasma of near critical density made for PHELIX-upgrade (0.7 ps, 200J (focused), 8×10$^{19}$ W/cm$^{2}$) and PEARL (30 fs, 15 J, 10$^{21}$ W/cm$^{2}$) demonstrated that our scheme can be successfully used for both ps and fs laser pulses.  All these make high-current DLA electrons generated in the pre-ionized low density foams an excellent tool for interdisciplinary research with lasers.

Zoom-Meeting
https://gsi-fair.zoom.us/j/96629963798

Meeting-ID: 966 2996 3798
Kenncode: 130302