Instrumentation Division Seminar

At the Extreme Light Lab at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton, we explore light matter interaction at relativistic fields with liquid targets. Although demonstrations of up to 4 GeV1 electrons and ~100 MeV protons2 have been achieved in the past, all of these are not feasible as future accelerators, due to their slow duty cycle (usually single shot, rarely 1 Hz). There are many challenges to increasing the duty cycle, where laser technology, target technology, damage to system, target alignment, high repetition rate sub-micron plasma diagnostics provides nearly insurmountable obstacles. In this program, we developed ways to accelerate MeV x-rays, electrons3 and ions4 at kHz repetition rate with a small milli-joule class laser system, by developing a combination of suitable laser system, diagnostic system, target system and experimental data collection system capable of handling the high duty cycle. We also perform femtosecond-time resolution pump-probe imaging of the interaction, and extensive large scale relativistic laser plasma interaction simulations5 that reveal the nature of the acceleration processes. Such a system opens the door to extensive future application as a source for materials processing, radiation hardness testing, medical isotope production, time resolved proton probing on relativistic interactions, and many others.