Few-femtosecond resolved imaging of laser-driven nanoplasma expansion
Abstract
The free expansion of a planar plasma surface is a fundamental non-equilibrium process relevant for various fields but as-yet experimentally still difficult to capture. The significance of the associated spatiotemporal plasma motion ranges from astrophysics and controlled fusion to laser machining, surface high-harmonic generation, plasma mirrors, and laser-driven particle acceleration. Here, we show that x-ray coherent diffractive imaging can surpass existing approaches and enables the quantitative real-time analysis of the sudden free expansion of laser-heated nanoplasmas. For laser-ionized SiO2 nanospheres, we resolve the formation of the emerging nearly self-similar plasma profile evolution and expose the so far inaccessible shell-wise expansion dynamics including the associated startup delay and rarefaction front velocity. Our results establish time-resolved diffractive imaging as an accurate quantitative diagnostic platform for tracing and characterizing plasma expansion and indicate the possibility to resolve various laser-driven processes including shock formation and wave-breaking phenomena with unprecedented resolution.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1088/1367-2630/ac5e86
Entities
People
- A. Rudenko
- Adam M. Summers
- B Langer
- C Bostedt
- C Graf
- Carlos Trallero
- Christian Peltz
- D. Ray
- Daniel Rolles
- E Antonsson
- Eckart Ruehl
- G. Coslovich
- I Halfpap
- Jeffery A Powell
- K. Ferguson
- M Gallei
- M. Bucher
- Matthias F Kling
- P Rupp
- Qingcao Liu
- R N Coffee
- S. Möller
- S. Zherebtsov
- T Gorkhover
- T Osipov
- Thomas Fennel
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- German Research Foundation
- United States Department of Energy