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Development of a Platform at the Matter in Extreme Conditions End Station for Characterization of Matter Heated by Intense Laser-Accelerated Protons

Journal Article · · IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
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  1. Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States); University of California San Diego
  2. Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
  3. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  4. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
  5. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  6. Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States). Lab. for Laser Energetics
+ Show Author Affiliations
High intensity short-pulse lasers have made possible the generation of energetic proton beams, unlocking numerous applications in high energy density science. One such application is uniform and isochoric heating of materials to the warm dense matter (WDM) state. We have developed a new experimental platform to simultaneously create and probe warm dense matter at the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) end station at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). The short pulse optical laser (delivering up to 1 J in 45 fs) and the ultra-bright LCLS x-ray laser with tunable frequency respectively deliver high power required to heat materials to WDM and precision-timed high-resolution x-rays to probe them. The laser-accelerated proton beam driven from a flat 1.5 μm Cu foil was first measured then directed to a secondary sample of Al or polypropylene, typically 300-400 μm away. The time evolution of the sample electron temperature was measured using streaked optical pyrometry, where we observed a peak temperature of 0.9 0.15 eV on the rear surface of an Al sample heated by the proton beam. Here, the simulations using the hybrid-PIC code LSP and the rad-hydro code HELIOS show that a measured proton beam can heat Al to approximately 4 eV and polypropylene to 1 eV if instead focused by a hemispherical Cu target. Through additional LSP simulations, we anticipate creating hotter warm dense matter states (20 eV) by increasing the laser energy to 10 J and keeping the other laser parameters fixed.
Research Organization:
Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
Grant/Contract Number:
NA0003876
OSTI ID:
1647224
Journal Information:
IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 48; ISSN 0093-3813; ISSN 1939-9375
Publisher:
IEEECopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Free electron lasers (FELs)
X-ray spectroscopy
proton beams