We report on the measurement of filamented transport of laser-generated fast electron beams in near- critical density plasma. A relativistic intensity long-wave-infrared laser irradiated a hydrodynamically shaped helium gas flow at an electron density n e <^> 1025 m-3, generating a large flux of fast electrons that propagated beyond the critical surface. The beam-to-background electron density ratio was sufficiently high to drive growth of Weibel-like filamentation, which was measured by optical probing to extend up to 800 mu m with radii 10 mu m. Particle-in-cell simulations reproduce the main features of the filamentation generation, suggesting that collisionless processes are dominant in these interactions. Expansion of the filaments after formation infers a fast electron heated plasma temperature 400 eV in the overcritical density plasma.

We present a systematic experimental investigation of temporal contrast enhancement techniques for petawatt (PW)-class Ti:sapphire lasers utilizing a double chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) architecture. Particular attention is given to pre-pulses induced by post-pulses originating in the first CPA stage. One conventional and two advanced pulse-cleaning strategies are quantitatively evaluated: (i) a saturable absorber (SA), (ii) a femtosecond optical parametric amplifier (OPA) employing the idler pulse in a two-stage configuration, and (iii) sum-frequency generation (SFG) combining the signal and idler pulses from the OPA. All techniques are implemented and evaluated using the J-KAREN-P laser system with an output energy of about 20 J. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to directly and systematically compare the contrast of pre-pulses originating from the first CPA stage under identical experimental conditions in a high-energy PW-class laser facility. The results offer crucial insights into contrast optimization for future high-field applications.

Abstract Laser-plasma acceleration of protons offers a compact, ultra-fast alternative to conventional acceleration techniques, and is being widely pursued for potential applications in medicine, industry and fundamental science. Creating a stable, collimated beam of protons at high repetition rates presents a key challenge. Here, we demonstrate the generation of multi-MeV proton beams from a fast-replenishing ambient-temperature liquid sheet. The beam has an unprecedentedly low divergence of 1° (≤20 mrad), resulting from magnetic self-guiding of the proton beam during propagation through a low density vapour. The proton beams, generated at a repetition rate of 5 Hz using only 190 mJ of laser energy, exhibit a hundred-fold increase in flux compared to beams from a solid target. Coupled with the high shot-to-shot stability of this source, this represents a crucial step towards applications.

The generation of a plasma with an ultrahigh energy density of 1.2 GJ/cm(3) (which corresponds to about 12 Gbar pressure) is investigated by irradiating thin stainless-steel foils with high-contrast femtosecond laser pulses with relativistic intensities of up to 1022 W/cm(2). The plasma parameters are determined by X-ray spectroscopy. The results show that most of the laser energy is absorbed by the plasma at solid density, indicating that no pre-plasma is generated in the current experimental setup.

Femtosecond high-intensity laser pulses at intensities surpassing 1014 W/cm2 can generate a diverse range of functional surface nanostructures. Achieving precise control over the production of these functional structures necessitates a thorough understanding of the surface morphology dynamics with nanometer-scale spatial resolution and picosecond-scale temporal resolution. In this study, we show that single XFEL pulses can elucidate structural changes on surfaces induced by laser-generated plasmas using grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS). Using aluminium-coated multilayer samples we distinguish between sub-picosecond (ps) surface morphology dynamics and subsequent multi-ps subsurface density dynamics with nanometer-depth sensitivity. The observed subsurface density dynamics serve to validate advanced simulation models representing matter under extreme conditions. Our findings promise to open new avenues for laser material-nanoprocessing and high-energy-density science.

Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method is a powerful plasma simulation tool for investigating high-intensity femtosecond laser-matter interaction. However, its simulation capability at high-density plasmas around the Fermi temperature is considered to be inadequate due, among others, to the necessity of implementing atomic-scale collisions. Here, we performed a one-dimensional with three-velocity space (1D3V) PIC simulation that features the realistic collision frequency around the Fermi temperature and atomic-scale cell size. The results are compared with state-of-the-art experimental results as well as with hydrodynamic simulation. We found that the PIC simulation is capable of simulating the nanoscale dynamics of solid-density plasmas around the Fermi temperature up to ∼2 ps driven by a laser pulse at the moderate intensity of 10^14-15 W/cm^2, by comparing with the state-of-the-art experimental results. The reliability of the simulation can be further improved in the future by implementing multi-dimensional kinetics and radiation transport.

Laser-driven ion accelerators can deliver high-energy, high-peak current beams and are thus attracting attention as a compact alternative to conventional accelerators. However, achieving sufficiently high energy levels suitable for applications such as radiation therapy remains a challenge for laser-driven ion accelerators. Here we generate proton beams with a spectrally separated high-energy component of up to 150 MeV by irradiating solid-density plastic foil targets with ultrashort laser pulses from a repetitive petawatt laser. The preceding laser light heats the target, leading to the onset of relativistically induced transparency upon main pulse arrival. The laser peak then penetrates the initially opaque target and triggers proton acceleration through a cascade of different mechanisms, as revealed by three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The transparency of the target can be used to identify the high-performance domain, making it a suitable feedback parameter for automated laser and target optimization to enhance stability of plasma accelerators in the future. Laser-driven proton acceleration experiments achieve energies of up to 150 MeV with particle yields that are relevant for applications such as radiobiology.

Ion acceleration by compact laser-plasma sources promises a variety of applications, but reaching the required beam quality parameters demands a high level of understanding and control over the laser-plasma interaction process. Several advanced acceleration schemes, including the Relativistically Induced Transparency (RIT) regime, have been proposed and investigated in search of a stable acceleration regime for proton energies beyond 100 MeV. Central component in the RIT scheme is the absorption of the electromagnetic laser field by the target and the generated plasma respectively. In joint studies, we experimentally explore these interactions at the onset of transparency at the two laser systems DRACO PW (HZDR) and J-KAREN (KPSI). With our transmission diagnostics, we characterize this onset with respect to the laser temporal profile in order to learn about the sensitivity of laser input parameters to increase the process’s robustness. Using ultra-short, high and low-contrast laser pulses on thin solid density foil targets, we observe high performance proton beams in an expanded foil case. The results of spectral, spatial, and energy analysis of the effects on the transmission and its correlation with the acceleration performance indicate changes in the plasma interaction itself.

Abstract We present the development and characterization of a high-stability, multi-material, multi-thickness tape-drive target for laser-driven acceleration at repetition rates of up to 100 Hz. The tape surface position was measured to be stable on the sub-micrometre scale, compatible with the high-numerical aperture focusing geometries required to achieve relativistic intensity interactions with the pulse energy available in current multi-Hz and near-future higher repetition-rate lasers ( $>$ kHz). Long-term drift was characterized at 100 Hz demonstrating suitability for operation over extended periods. The target was continuously operated at up to 5 Hz in a recent experiment for 70,000 shots without intervention by the experimental team, with the exception of tape replacement, producing the largest data-set of relativistically intense laser–solid foil measurements to date. This tape drive provides robust targetry for the generation and study of high-repetition-rate ion beams using next-generation high-power laser systems, also enabling wider applications of laser-driven proton sources.

We described the output performance and temporal quality enhancement of the J-KAREN-P petawatt laser facility. After wavefront correction using a deformable mirror, focusing with an f/1.3 off-axis parabolic mirror delivered a peak intensity of 1022 W/cm2 at 0.3 PW power levels. Technologies to improve the temporal contrast were investigated and tested. The origins of pre-pulses generated by post-pulses were identified and the elimination of most pre-pulses by removal of the post-pulses with wedged optics was achieved. A cascaded femtosecond optical parametric amplifier based on the utilization of the idler pulse rather than the signal pulse was developed for the complete elimination of the remaining pre-pulses. The orders of magnitude enhancement of the pedestal before the main pulse were obtained by using a higher surface quality of the convex mirror in the Öffner stretcher. A single plasma mirror was installed in the J-KAREN-P laser beam line for further contrast improvement of three orders of magnitude. The above developments indicate, although it has not been directly measured, the contrast can be as high as approximately 1015 up to 40 ps before the main pulse. We also showed an overview of the digital transformation (DX) of the system, enabling remote and automated operation of the J-KAREN-P laser facility.

Laser-driven ion sources are a rapidly developing technology producing high energy, high peak current beams. Their suitability for applications, such as compact medical accelerators, motivates development of robust acceleration schemes using widely available repetitive ultraintense femtosecond lasers. These applications not only require high beam energy, but also place demanding requirements on the source stability and controllability. This can be seriously affected by the laser temporal contrast, precluding the replication of ion acceleration performance on independent laser systems with otherwise similar parameters. Here, we present the experimental generation of > 60 MeV protons and > 30 MeV u −1 carbon ions from sub-micrometre thickness Formvar foils irradiated with laser intensities > 10 21 Wcm 2 . Ions are accelerated by an extreme localised space charge field ≳30 TVm −1 , over a million times higher than used in conventional accelerators. The field is formed by a rapid expulsion of electrons from the target bulk due to relativistically induced transparency, in which relativistic corrections to the refractive index enables laser transmission through normally opaque plasma. We replicate the mechanism on two different laser facilities and show that the optimum target thickness decreases with improved laser contrast due to reduced pre-expansion. Our demonstration that energetic ions can be accelerated by this mechanism at different contrast levels relaxes laser requirements and indicates interaction parameters for realising application-specific beam delivery.

We report on proton acceleration from intense CO2 laser-irradiated hydrogen plasmas at near-critical densities, with the density gradient steepened by Nd:YAG laser ablation-driven hydrodynamic shocks. While the experimental results, such as the quasi-monoenergetic proton spectra and their scaling with respect to the laser energy, are generally in agreement with the simulations, certain laser shots produced significantly higher proton energies than anticipated during the experiment. The increased proton energy may be linked to nonlinear propagation effects in the steepened plasma density ramp before the critical surface, including relativistic self-focusing and, for the case of temporally-structured laser pulses observed in the experiment, focusing of the trailing pulse through the plasma channel formed by the leading pulse 25 ps ahead. The occurrence of channel focusing in the underdense hydrogen plasma is supported by a subsequent pump-probe experiment with a dark-field imaging technique, where the formation of ion channels was observed after the passage of an intense CO2 laser pulse.

The interaction of relativistically intense lasers with opaque targets represents a highly non-linear, multi-dimensional parameter space. This limits the utility of sequential 1D scanning of experimental parameters for the optimization of secondary radiation, although to-date this has been the accepted methodology due to low data acquisition rates. High repetition-rate (HRR) lasers augmented by machine learning present a valuable opportunity for efficient source optimization. Here, an automated, HRR-compatible system produced high-fidelity parameter scans, revealing the influence of laser intensity on target pre-heating and proton generation. A closed-loop Bayesian optimization of maximum proton energy, through control of the laser wavefront and target position, produced proton beams with equivalent maximum energy to manually optimized laser pulses but using only 60% of the laser energy. This demonstration of automated optimization of laser-driven proton beams is a crucial step towards deeper physical insight and the construction of future radiation sources.

We report on the design and characterization of the plasma mirror system installed on the J-KAREN-P laser at the Kansai Photon Science Institute, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology. The reflectivity of the single plasma mirror system exceeded 80%. In addition, the temporal contrast was improved by two orders of magnitude at 1 ps before the main pulse. Furthermore, the laser near-field spatial distribution after the plasma mirror was kept constant at plasma mirror fluence of less than 100 kJ/cm(2). We also present the results of investigating the difference and the fluctuation in energy, pulse width and pointing stability with and without the plasma mirror system.

Observing ultrafast laser-induced structural changes in nanoscale systems is essential for understanding the dynamics of intense light-matter interactions. For laser intensities on the order of 10^14 W/cm^2, highly-collisional plasmas are generated at and below the surface. Subsequent transport processes such as heat conduction, electron-ion thermalization, surface ablation and resolidification occur at picosecond and nanosecond time scales. Imaging methods, e.g. using x-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL), were hitherto unable to measure the depth-resolved subsurface dynamics of laser-solid interactions with appropriate temporal and spatial resolution. Here we demonstrate picosecond grazing-incidence small-angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS) from laser-produced plasmas using XFEL pulses. Using multi-layer (ML) samples, both the surface ablation and subsurface density dynamics are measured with nanometer depth resolution. Our experimental data challenges the state-of-the-art modeling of matter under extreme conditions and opens new perspectives for laser material processing and high-energy-density science.

We have realized the removal of most pre-pulses with wedged optics and orders of magnitude enhancement of the pedestal with higher optical quality optics. We have successfully installed the plasma mirror system for further improvement.

We report on experimental investigations of proton acceleration from solid foils irradiated with PW-class laser-pulses, where highest proton cut-off energies were achieved for temporal pulse parameters that varied significantly from those of an ideally Fourier transform limited (FTL) pulse. Controlled spectral phase modulation of the driver laser by means of an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter enabled us to manipulate the temporal shape of the last picoseconds around the main pulse and to study the effect on proton acceleration from thin foil targets. The results show that applying positive third order dispersion values to short pulses is favourable for proton acceleration and can lead to maximum energies of 70 MeV in target normal direction at 18 J laser energy for thin plastic foils, significantly enhancing the maximum energy compared to ideally compressed FTL pulses. The paper further proves the robustness and applicability of this enhancement effect for the use of different target materials and thicknesses as well as laser energy and temporal intensity contrast settings. We demonstrate that application relevant proton beam quality was reliably achieved over many months of operation with appropriate control of spectral phase and temporal contrast conditions using a state-of-the-art high-repetition rate PW laser system.

This paper reports on the absolute response of a Fuji BAS-TR image plate to relatively low-energy protons (<0.2 MeV) and carbon ions (<1 MeV) accelerated by a 10-TW-class compact high-intensity laser system. A Thomson parabola spectrometer was used to discriminate between different ion species while dispersing the ions according to their kinetic energy. Ion parabolic traces were recorded using an image plate detector overlaid with a slotted CR-39 solid-state detector. The obtained response function for the protons was reasonably extrapolated from previously reported higher-ion-energy response functions. Conversely, the obtained response function for carbon ions was one order of magnitude higher than the value extrapolated from previously reported higher-ion-energy response functions. In a previous study, it was determined that if the stopping range of carbon ions is comparable to or smaller than the grain size of the phosphor, then some ions will provide all their energy to the binder resin rather than the phosphor. As a result, it is believed that the imaging plate response will be reduced. Our results show good agreement with the empirical formula of Lelasseux et al., which does not consider photo-stimulated luminescence (PSL) reduction due to the urethane resin. It was shown that the PSL reduction due to the deactivation of the urethane resin is smaller than that previously predicted.

We demonstrate the removal of the pre-pulses based on the exploration of the generation of pre-pulses by post-pulses through the nonlinear process associated with the B-integral in the laser chain of the petawatt facility J-KAREN-P.