Bixue Hou

Dependence of hard x-ray yield on laser pulse parameters in the wavelength-cubed regime

Conversion efficiency and electron temperature scaling laws are experimentally studied in the wavelength-cubed (λ3) regime, where a single-wavelength focus allows low energy pulses incident on a Mo target to produce x rays with excellent efficiency and improved spatial coherence. Focused intensity is varied from 2×1016 to 2×1018 W/cm2. Conversion efficiency and electron temperature are best described by a power law for energy scaling while an exponential law best describes the scaling of these parameters with pulse duration.

Electron diffraction using ultrafast electron bunches from a laser-wakefield accelerator at kHz repetition rate

We show that electron bunches in the 50–100 keV range can be produced from a laser wakefield accelerator using 10 mJ, 35 fs laser pulses operating at 0.5 kHz. It is shown that using a solenoid magnetic lens, the electron bunch distribution can be shaped. The resulting transverse and longitudinal coherence is suitable for producing diffraction images from a polycrystalline 10 nm aluminum foil. The high repetition rate, the stability of the electron source, and the fact that its uncorrelated bunch duration is below 100 fs make this approach promising for the development of sub-100 fs ultrafast electron diffraction experiments.

Temperature scaling of hot electrons produced by a tightly focused relativistic-intensity laser at 0.5 kHz repetition rate

The energy spectrum of hot electrons emitted from the interaction of a relativistically intense laser with an Al plasma is measured at a repetition rate of 0.5 kHz by accumulating ∼103 highly reproducible laser shots. In the 1017–2×1018 W/cm2 range, the temperature of electrons escaping the plasma along the specular direction scales as (Iλ2)0.64±0.05 for p-polarized pulses incident at 45°. This scaling is in good agreement with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and a simple model that estimates the hot-electron temperature by considering the balance between the deposited laser intensity and the energy carried away by those electrons.

Vacuum-free x-ray source based on ultrashort laser irradiation of solids

A vacuum-free ultrafast laser-based x-ray source is demonstrated. Hard x-rays up to 80KeV are generated from Cu, Mo, Ag, Sn, and Ge targets in a laminar helium flow surrounded by atmosphere using tightly focused 33fs, 3mJ laser pulses. X-ray spectra, conversion efficiencies, and source sizes are presented. Six-fold efficiency improvement is observed, over similar sources found in the literature [1]. Source sizes determined for Cu and Mo show distinct dependences on laser pulse energy. It is also shown that the Cu source size has no dependence on the presence of the spectral band around the 8KeV K-shell lines.

Spatial coherence properties of a compact and ultrafast laser-produced plasma keV x-ray source

The authors use Fresnel diffraction from knife-edges to demonstrate the spatial coherence of a tabletop ultrafast x-ray source produced by laser-plasma interaction. Spatial coherence is achieved in the far field by producing micrometer-scale x-ray spot dimensions. The results show an x-ray source size of 6μm that leads to a transversal coherence length of 20μm at a distance of 60cm from the source. Moreover, they show that the source size is limited by the spatial spread of the absorbed laser energy.

Laser-ion acceleration through controlled surface contamination

In laser-plasma ion accelerators, control of target contamination layers can lead to selection of accelerated ion species and enhancement of acceleration. To demonstrate this, deuterons up to 75 keV are accelerated from an intense laser interaction with a glass target simply by placing 1 ml of heavy water inside the experimental chamber prior to pumping to generate a deuterated contamination layer on the target. Using the same technique with a deuterated-polystyrene-coated target also enhances deuteron yield by a factor of 3 to 5, while increasing the maximum energy of the generated deuterons to 140 keV.

Femtosecond microscopy of radial energy transport in a micrometer-scale aluminum plasma excited at relativistic intensity

Using femtosecond microscopy, we observe subpicosecond transport of thermal energy radially outward from a micrometer-sized spot of an aluminum target following P-polarized excitation at >10(18) W/cm2 with a 24 fs pulse. The rapid expansion coincides with the onset of nonlocal energy transport dominated by radiation and hot electrons.

Demonstration of fiber-laser-produced plasma source and application to efficient extreme UV light generation.

Efficient generation of extreme UV (EUV) light at lambda = 13.5 nm from a bulk Sn target has been demonstrated by using a fiber laser. The conversion efficiency from the 1064 nm IR to the EUV was measured to be around 0.9% into 2pi steradians within a 2% bandwidth. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an all-fiber system was used to generate EUV or soft x rays.

Directional properties of hard x-ray sources generated by tightly focused ultrafast laser pulses

Directional properties of ultrafast laser-based hard x-ray sources are experimentally studied using tightly focused approximately millijoule laser pulses incident on a bulk Mo target. Energy distributions of Kα and total x rays, as well as source-size distributions are directionally resolved in vacuum and in flowing helium, respectively. Directional distributions of x-ray emission is more isotropic for p-polarized pump than for s-polarized. Based on source-size measurements, a simple two-location model, with expanded plasma and bulk material, is employed to represent the x-ray source profile.

Generation of hard X-rays using an ultrafast fiber laser system

We report the first hard X-ray source driven by a femtosecond fiber laser. The high energy fiber CPA system incorporated a 65mum LMA fiber amplifying stage which provided 300-fs recompressed pulses and diffraction limited beam quality with M(2) < 1.07. A deformable mirror was used to optimize the wavefront and the spot size was focused down to 2.3 mum with an f/1.2 paraboloidal mirror. 50muJ was deposited on the nickel target with 2x10(15)-W/cm(2) focal intensity and a distinctive Ni K(alpha)-line (7.48 keV) emission was measured with 5x10(-8) energy conversion efficiency.