Z-petawatt driven ion beam radiography development.
Laser-driven proton radiography provides electromagnetic field mapping with high spatiotemporal resolution, and has been applied to many laser-driven High Energy Density Physics (HEDP) experiments. Our report addresses key questions about the feasibility of ion radiography at the Z-Accelerator (%E2%80%9CZ%E2%80%9D), concerning laser configuration, hardware, and radiation background. Charged particle tracking revealed that radiography at Z requires GeV scale protons, which is out of reach for existing and near-future laser systems. However, it might be possible to perform proton deflectometry to detect magnetic flux compression in the fringe field region of a magnetized liner inertial fusion experiment. Experiments with the Z-Petawatt laser to enhance proton yield and energy showed an unexpected scaling with target thickness. Full-scale, 3D radiation-hydrodynamics simulations, coupled to fully explicit and kinetic 2D particle-in-cell simulations running for over 10 ps, explain the scaling by a complex interplay of laser prepulse, preplasma, and ps-scale temporal rising edge of the laser.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- LDRD Project %23151367.
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 1096444
- Report Number(s):
- SAND2013-7201; 474231
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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