High Intensity Femtosecond XUV Pulse Interactions with Atomic Clusters: Final Report
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States). Center for High Energy Density Science; The University of Texas at Austin
We propose to expand our recent studies on the interactions of intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) femtosecond pulses with atomic and molecular clusters. The work described follows directly from work performed under BES support for the past grant period. During this period we upgraded the THOR laser at UT Austin by replacing the regenerative amplifier with optical parametric amplification (OPA) using BBO crystals. This increased the contrast of the laser, the total laser energy to ~1.2 J , and decreased the pulse width to below 30 fs. We built a new all reflective XUV harmonic beam line into expanded lab space. This enabled an increase influence by a factor of 25 and an increase in the intensity by a factor of 50. The goal of the program proposed in this renewal is to extend this class of experiments to available higher XUV intensity and a greater range of wavelengths. In particular we plan to perform experiments to confirm our hypothesis about the origin of the high charge states in these exploding clusters, an effect which we ascribe to plasma continuum lowering (ionization potential depression) in a cluster nano-plasma. To do this we will perform experiments in which XUV pulses of carefully chosen wavelength irradiate clusters composed of only low-Z atoms and clusters with a mixture of this low-Z atom with higher Z atoms. The latter clusters will exhibit higher electron densities and will serve to lower the ionization potential further than in the clusters composed only of low Z atoms. This should have a significant effect on the charge states produced in the exploding cluster. We will also explore the transition of explosions in these XUV irradiated clusters from hydrodynamic expansion to Coulomb explosion. The work proposed here will explore clusters of a wider range of constituents, including clusters from solids. Experiments on clusters from solids will be enabled by development we performed during the past grant period in which we constructed and tested a cluster generator based on the Laser Ablation of Microparticles (LAM) method.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States). Center for High Energy Density Science
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-03ER15406
- OSTI ID:
- 1328857
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-UTCHEDS--15406
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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High Intensity Femtosecond XUV Pulse Interactions with Atomic Clusters
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