Time evolution of transient plasma states from nanowire arrays irradiated at relativistic intensities
Abstract
Understanding the evolution of extreme states of matter driven by relativistic laser-plasma interactions is a fundamental problem in high-field physics. This is especially true for nanostructured targets, where hydrodynamic effects play a key role within the ultra-fast time scale of laser absorption. Nanowire array targets are of particular interest as they provide an efficient means to access the ultra-high-energy-density regime due to their increased optical absorption, and have been shown to act as very efficient x-ray emission sources. I will present analysis of time-resolved x-ray emission spectroscopy from petawatt-irradiated Nickel nanowire arrays, used to characterise the conditions achieved when scaling the performance of nanowire targets to relativistic intensities. A full time evolution of the plasma conditions is extracted from the experimental data, and shows good agreement with the physical interaction picture developed by prior computational studies.
- Publication:
-
APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020APS..DPPN08012H