 |
|
|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
Laser Plasma |
Laser Plasma Experiments 1. Low mass target experiments In these experiments we expose targets that have a mass of only a few milligrams to intense pulses of laser light. Concentrating the energy of a high power short pulse laser into such a small quantity of material results in extremely high temperatures (around 10 million Kelvin). The purpose of these experiments is to investigate the physics of the Fast Ignition approach to Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and also to study the processes involved in creating ultra-bright laser driven x-ray sources. Such sources may be used to probe extremely fast moving phenomena since the effective duration of the flash is only a few picoseconds in duration. Radiation emitted from a low mass ‘nail’ target 2. Warm dense matter transport experiments The transport of laser generated relativistic electrons in materials with temperatures of approximately one million Kelvin, and densities of 1g/cc or higher, is of considerable importance to Fast Ignition . Such experiments require both high energy nanosecond and picosecond duration beams, to, respectively, form the warm dense matter, and drive the relativistic electron beam. There are only a handful of facilities with such capabilities in the world. We perform our experiments at the Titan Laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California. Radiation emitted by a warm dense matter target 3. 2-D radiation hydrodynamics simulations In considering the behavior of materials at high temperatures, it is often important to consider the effects of the radiation that is emitted by the material upon the dynamics of the physical system. Radiation can couple energy between spatially separated regions and allow for fluid to be accelerated, heated and compressed without mechanical intervention. In order to assist us in the design and analysis of experiments, in which targets often exceed temperatures of a million Kelvin, we employ sophisticated two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics modeling using the code h2d. This code is hosted at General Atomics. Simulation of laser prepulse interacting with copper target |
|
|
