The Role of collision ionization of K-shell ions in nonequilibrium plasmas produced by the action of super strong, ultrashort PW-class laser pulses on micron-scale argon clusters with intensity up to 5 10 W/cm

Skobelev, I. Yu.*; Ryazantsev, S. N.*; Kulikov, R. K.*; Sedov, M. V.*; Filippov, E. D.*; Pikuz, S. A.*; Asai, Takafumi*; Kanasaki, Masato*; Yamauchi, Tomoya*; Jinno, Satoshi; et al.

Photonics (Internet), 10(11), p.1250_1 - 1250_11, 2023/11

https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics10111250

It is challenging to clearly distinguish the impacts of the optical field and collisional ionization in the evolution of the charge state of a plasma produced when matter interacts with high-intensity laser pulses. In this work, time-dependent calculations of plasma kinetics are used to show that it is possible only when low-density gaseous targets with sufficiently small clusters are used. In the case of Ar plasma, the upper limit of the cluster radius was estimated to be m.

The Precise energy spectra measurement of laser-accelerated MeV/n-class high-Z ions and protons using CR-39 detectors

Kanasaki, Masato; Jinno, Satoshi*; Sakaki, Hironao; Kondo, Kiminori; Oda, Keiji*; Yamauchi, Tomoya*; Fukuda, Yuji

Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 58(3), p.034013_1 - 034013_6, 2016/03

https://doi.org/10.1088/0741-3335/58/3/034013

In order to understand the synergetic interplay between the Coulomb explosion of clusters and the background gas dynamics, we have conducted ion acceleration experiments using CO clusters (250 nm in dia.) embedded in background H gas with the J-KAREN laser (1 J, 40 fs, 10 contrast) at JAEA-KPSI. By a careful analysis of etch pit positions on CR-39 and their structures including the etch pit growth behavior analysis with the multi-step etching technique, energy spectra for protons from the background gas and carbon/oxygen ions from the clusters are obtained separately. The maximum energies of protons and carbon/oxygen ions are determined as 1.6 MeV and 1.1 MeV/u, respectively. Based on the experimental results, the acceleration mechanism of the background gas ions induced by Coulomb explosion of clusters is discussed with the help from numerical simulations which employ a particle-in-cell (PIC) method including relaxation and ionization processes of plasma particles.

Revealing the second harmonic generation in a femtosecond laser-driven cluster-based plasma by analyzing shapes of Ar XVII spectral lines

Oks, E.*; Dalimier, E.*; Faenov, A.*; Pikuz, T.*; Fukuda, Yuji; Andreev, A.*; Koga, J. K.; Sakaki, Hironao; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Pirozhkov, A. S.; et al.

Optics Express (Internet), 23(25), p.31991 - 32005, 2015/12

https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.031991

We present experiments dealing with a femtosecond laser-driven cluster-based plasma, where by analyzing the nonlinear phenomenon of satellites of spectral lines of Ar XVII, we revealed the nonlinear phenomenon of the generation of the second harmonic of the laser frequency. For performing this analysis we developed new results in the theory of satellites of spectral lines. From such lineshape analysis we found, in particular, that the efficiency of converting the short (40 fs) intense (310 W/cm) incident laser light into the second harmonic was 2%. This result is in the excellent agreement with the 2-Dimensional Particle-In-Cell (2D PIC) simulation that we also performed. There is also an order of magnitude agreement between the thresholds for the SHG found from the line shape analysis and from the 2D PIC simulations.

Laser-driven multi-charged heavy ion beam acceleration

Nishiuchi, Mamiko; Sakaki, Hironao; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Pikuz, T. A.*; Faenov, A. Ya.*; Pirozhkov, A. S.; Sagisaka, Akito; Ogura, Koichi; Kanasaki, Masato; et al.

Research Using Extreme Light; Entering New Frontiers with Petawatt-Class Lasers II (Proceedings of SPIE, Vol.9515), p.95151D_1 - 95151D_4, 2015/06

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2179204

Experimental demonstration of multi-charged heavy ion acceleration from the interaction between the ultra-intense short pulse laser system and the metal target is presented. The laser pulse of 10 J laser energy, 36 fs pulse width, and the contrast level of 10 from 200 TW class Ti:sapphire J-KAREN laser system at JAEA is used in the experiment. Almost fully stripped Fe ions accelerated up to 0.9 GeV are demonstrated. This is achieved by the high intensity laser field of 10Wcm interacting with the solid density target. The demonstrated iron ions with high charge to mass ratio (Q/M) is difficult to be achieved by the conventional heavy ion source technique in the accelerators.

Acceleration of highly charged GeV Fe ions from a low-Z substrate by intense femtosecond laser

Nishiuchi, Mamiko; Sakaki, Hironao; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Pikuz, T.*; Faenov, A.*; Skobelev, I. Yu.*; Orlandi, R.; Sako, Hiroyuki; Pirozhkov, A. S.; et al.

Physics of Plasmas, 22(3), p.033107_1 - 033107_8, 2015/03

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4913434

Almost fully stripped Fe ions accelerated up to 0.9 GeV are demonstrated with a 200 TW femtosecond high-intensity laser irradiating a micron-thick Al foil with Fe impurity on the surface. An energetic low-emittance high-density beam of heavy ions with a large charge-to-mass ratio can be obtained, which is useful for many applications, such as a compact radio isotope source in combination with conventional technology.

Development of an apparatus for characterization of cluster-gas targets for laser-driven particle accelerations

Jinno, Satoshi; Fukuda, Yuji; Sakaki, Hironao; Yogo, Akifumi; Kanasaki, Masato; Kondo, Kiminori; Faenov, A. Y.; Skobelev, I. Yu.*; Pikuz, T.; Boldarev, A. S.*; et al.

Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science XI; Springer Series in Chemical Physics, Vol.109, p.215 - 233, 2015/00

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06731-5_10

Clusters formed in supersonic gas expansion through a three-staged conical nozzle have been verified by measuring the angular distribution of the light scattered from cluster target. The size distirbutions of the clusters are calculated based on the Mie theory. The reliability of the size measurement is verified to be an experimental error of 10% using standard particles. The mean sizes of CO clusters for the cases of CO/H and CO/He mixed-gas targets are estimated to be 0.26 m and 0.22 m, respectively. For the CO/H, the cluster density is estimated to be 5.5 clusters/cm by measuring the attenuation of the laser beam intensity. Furthermore, total gas density profiles are obtained via the Abel inversion from the phase shift of the light passing through the target using an interferometer. The variation of the cluster mass fraction along the radial direction of the target is almost constant, which is consistent with a Boldarev's model.

Intensity of diffracted X-rays from biomolecules with radiation damage caused by strong X-ray pulses

Kai, Takeshi; Tokuhisa, Atsushi*; Moribayashi, Kengo; Fukuda, Yuji; Kono, Hidetoshi; Go, Nobuhiro*

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 83(9), p.094301_1 - 094301_5, 2014/09

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.83.094301

no abstracts in English

Prepulse and amplified spontaneous emission effects on the interaction of a petawatt class laser with thin solid targets

Esirkepov, T. Z.; Koga, J. K.; Sunahara, Atsushi*; Morita, Toshimasa; Nishikino, Masaharu; Kageyama, Kei*; Nagatomo, Hideo*; Nishihara, Katsunobu; Sagisaka, Akito; Kotaki, Hideyuki; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 745, p.150 - 163, 2014/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2014.01.056

Current status and future prospects of "J-KAREN"; High contrast, high intensity laser for studying relativistic laser-matter interactions

Kiriyama, Hiromitsu; Mori, Michiaki; Okada, Hajime; Shimomura, Takuya; Nakai, Yoshiki*; Tanoue, Manabu; Kondo, Shuji; Kanazawa, Shuhei; Yogo, Akifumi; Sagisaka, Akito; et al.

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 1, p.015095_1 - 015095_5, 2014/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.1.015095

We present the design and characterization of a high-contrast, petawatt-class Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser system. Two saturable absorbers and low-gain optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) preamplifier in the double CPA laser chain have improved the temporal contrast to 1.410 on the subnanosecond time scale at 70 terawatt level. Final uncompressed broadband pulse energy is 28 J, indicating the potential for reaching peak power near 600 terawatt. We also discuss our upgrade to over petawatt level at a 0.1 Hz repetition rate briefly.

Discrimination method of etch pits created by laser-accelerated protons and recoiled protons by photo-neutrons using CR-39

Kanasaki, Masato; Fukuda, Yuji; Kondo, Kiminori; Oda, Keiji*; Yamauchi, Tomoya*

Reza Kenkyu, 42(2), p.168 - 173, 2014/02

In laser-driven ion acceleration experiments using the cluster-gas targets, a significant amount of fast electrons, which drives the ion acceleration, are produced along with high energy ions with several-tens of MeV. In our recent experiment using CO clusters embedded in H gas conducted with the J-KAREN laser facility (1 J, 40 fs) at JAEA-KPSI, the maximum energy of electrons reaches up to 200 MeV. Such fast electrons can produce photo-neutrons via bremsstrahlung processes followed by photo-nuclear reactions. When the CR-39 is exposed to photo-neutrons, it records etchable tracks of generated ions depending on their species and energy as background noises. In order to diagnose the laser-accelerated protons precisely using CR-39, we have developed the discrimination method for laser-accelerated protons and photo-neutrons on CR-39 based on the incident angle and incident energy.