Bremsstrahlung emission and plasma characterization driven by moderately relativistic laser-plasma interactions

Singh, Sushil Kumar and Armstrong, Chris and Kang, Ning and Ren, Lei and Liu, Huiya and Hua, Neng and Rusby, Dean R and Klimo, Ondrej and Versaci, Roberto and Zhang, Yan and Sun, Mingying and Zhu, Baoqiang and Lei, Anle and Ouyang, Xiaoping and Lancia, Livia and Garcia, Alejandro Laso and Wagner, Andreas and Cowan, Thomas E and Zhu, Jianqiang and Schlegel, Theodor and Weber, Stefan and McKenna, Paul and Neely, David and Tikhonchuk, Vladimir Timofeevich and Kumar, Deepak (2021) Bremsstrahlung emission and plasma characterization driven by moderately relativistic laser-plasma interactions. Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 63 (3). 035004. ISSN 0741-3335 (https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/abcf7e)

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Abstract

Relativistic electrons generated by the interaction of petawatt-class short laser pulses with solid targets can be used to generate bright x-rays via bremsstrahlung. The efficiency of laser energy transfer into these electrons depends on multiple parameters including the focused intensity and pre-plasma level. This paper reports experimental results from the interaction of a high intensity petawatt-class glass laser pulses with solid targets at a maximum intensity of 10 19 W cm − 2. In-situ measurements of specularly reflected light are used to provide an upper bound of laser absorption and to characterize focused laser intensity, the pre-plasma level and the generation mechanism of second harmonic light. The measured spectrum of electrons and bremsstrahlung radiation provide information about the efficiency of laser energy transfer.

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