Claes-Göran Wahlström

Enhanced proton beams from ultrathin targets driven by high contrast laser pulses

The generation of proton beams from ultrathin targets, down to 20 nm in thickness, driven with ultrahigh contrast laser pulses is explored. the conversion efficiency from laser energy into protons increases as the foil thickness is decreased, with good beam quality and high efficiencies of 1% being achieved, for protons with kinetic energy exceeding 0.9 MeV, for 100 nm thick aluminum foils at intensities of 10(19) W/cm(2) with 33 fs, 0.3 J pulses. To minimize amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) induced effects disrupting the acceleration mechanism, exceptional laser to ASE intensity contrasts of up to 1010 are achieved by introducing a plasma mirror to the high contrast 10 Hz multiterawatt laser at the Lund Laser Centre. It is shown that for a given laser energy on target, regimes of higher laser-to-proton energy conversion efficiency. can be accessed with increasing contrast. The increasing efficiency as the target thickness decreases is closely correlated to an increasing proton temperature. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Generating positrons with femtosecond-laser pulses

Utilizing a femtosecond table-top laser system, we have succeeded in converting via electron acceleration in a plasma channel, low-energy photons into antiparticles, namely positrons. The average intensity of this source of positrons is estimated to be equivalent to 2x10(8) Bq and it exhibits a very favorable scaling for higher laser intensities. The advent of positron production utilizing femtosecond laser pulses may be the forerunner to a table-top positron source appropriate for applications in material science, and fundamental physics research like positronium spectroscopy

Extreme ultraviolet interferometry measurements with high-order harmonics

We demonstrate that high-order harmonics generated by short, intense laser pulses in gases provide an interesting radiation source for extreme ultraviolet interferometry, since they are tunable, coherent, of short pulse duration, and simple to manipulate. Harmonics from the 9th to the 15th are used to measure the thickness of an aluminum layer. The 11th harmonic is used to determine the spatial distribution of the electron density of a plasma produced by a 300-ps laser. Electronic densities higher than 2-10(20)electrons/cm>(3) are measured.

Generation of MeV electrons and positrons with femtosecond pulses from a table-top laser system

In experiments, the feasibility was demonstrated of generating multi-MeV electrons in a form of a collimated beam utilizing a table-top laser system delivering 200 fs pulses with PL=1.2 TW and 10 Hz capability. The method uses the process of relativistic self-channeling in a high-density gas jet producing electron densities in the range of 3×1019–6×1020 cm−3. In a thorough investigation, angularly resolved and absolutely calibrated electron spectra were measured and their dependence on the plasma density, laser intensity, and gas medium was studied. For the optimum electron density of ne=2×1020 cm−3 the effective temperature of the electron energy distribution and the channel length exhibit a maximum of 5 MeV and 400 μm respectively. The laser-energyto-MeV-electron efficiency is estimated to be 5%. In a second step, utilizing the multi-MeV electron beam anti-particles, namely positrons, were successfully generated in a 2 mm Pb converter. The average intensity of this new source of positrons is estimated t...

On the stability of laser wakefield electron accelerators in the monoenergetic regime

The effects of plasma density and laser energy on the stability of laser produced monoenergetic electron beams are investigated. Fluctuations in the principal beam parameters, namely, electron energy, energy-spread, charge, and pointing, are demonstrated to be minimized at low densities. This improvement in stability is attributed to the reduced time for pulse evolution required before self-injection occurs; i.e., that the pulse is closest to the matched conditions for these densities. It is also observed that electrons are only consistently produced above a density-dependent energy threshold. These observations are consistent with there being a threshold intensity (a0≳3) required for the occurrence of self-injection after accounting for pulse compression.

Lund high-power laser facility – systems and first results

A high-power laser facility has been established at the Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden, available to national groups and their international collaboration partners. The laboratory incorporates three major 10Hz laser systems, that can be operated individually or synchronized in combined use. Each system represents extreme optical powers in a certain sense. The main system is a terawatt laser based on chirped pulse amplification in titanium doped sapphire. It generates radiation tunable in the 760-840 nm region with a maximum power of 1.5 TW in 150 fs long pulses. A further system is set up to generate nanosecond pulses of extremely bright VUV radiation (down to 120 nm) by sum-difference four-wave mixing in krypton gas. Finally, a third system generates widely tunable radiation (200-900 nm) of a pulse duration of 10s of picoseconds. The experimental areas incorporate target chambers, spectrometers and fast electronics. The systems have been used in a number of experiments requiring high optical powers, and a brief account of the initial activities is given. Detailed studies of high-harmonic generation in inert gases are reported as well as the generation and application of hard X-rays from microplasmas. Intense whitelight generation by self-phase modulation in water has been used for biological tissue studies and for chemical pump/probe experiments. VUV radiation has been used for studies of radiative properties of excited states.

Influence of atomic density in high-order harmonic generation

We have investigated how high-order harmonics generated in rare gases depend on the atomic density. The peak and the profile of the atomic density in the interaction region were measured as a function of the backing pressure and the distance from the nozzle by a differential interferometry technique. The conversion efficiency for the harmonics in the plateau was found to increase approximately quadratically over the entire range of peak pressures investigated (3–80 mbar). The intensity of the harmonics in the cutoff region, in contrast, increased only until an optimum peak pressure was reached, beyond which it decreased. This optimum peak pressure was found to be dependent on both the laser intensity and the process order. To understand this effect, we have performed extensive propagation calculations of both the fundamental and the harmonic fields, using ionization rates and dipole moments from a tunnel ionization model. We obtained good agreement with the experimental results. The observed effect is attributed to ionization-induced defocusing of the fundamental laser beam, which reduces the peak intensity obtained in the medium and shortens the extent of the plateau.

High-order harmonic generation in molecular gases

We present an experimental study of harmonic generation in molecular gases, using the fundamental (800 nm) and the second harmonic (400 nm) of a 150 fs titanium - sapphire laser at an intensity of . We compare the conversion efficiency and the maximum energy obtained in different species: rare gases (Ar, Xe), diatomic molecules (, , , CO) and polyatomic molecules (, O, , , ). The harmonic spectra from molecular gases are very similar to those obtained in the atomic gases, with a plateau and a cutoff whose location is strongly correlated to the value of the ionization potential. The conversion efficiency is not higher than that of the rare gases.

Lifetime and predissociation yield of N-14(2) b (1)Pi(u)(v=1)

The lifetime of the b (1)Pi(u)(v=1) state in N-14(2) has been determined experimentally using a laser-based pump-probe scheme and an exceptionally long lifetime of 2.61 ns was found. Semiempirical close-coupling calculations of the radiative lifetime, which include Rydberg-valence interactions in the singlet manifold, are consistent with this large value, giving a value of 3.61 ns and suggesting a predissociation yield of similar to28% for this level of the b state

Imaging Using Hard X-rays From A Laser-produced Plasma

Imaging of technical and biological objects using hard X-rays from a laser-produced plasma source is demonstrated. Magnification radiography and single-shot imaging of biological samples are feasible with the source, which utilised focused radiation from a short-pulse terawatt laser. Differential imaging with element specificity and a new projection geometry for X-ray radiography are proposed.