high-field atto-science
and its outreach for fusion research and medicine
and its outreach for fusion research and medicine
Increasing the strength of the electric field of near-infrared light in excess of 10^{10} V/cm accelerates electrons liberated from their atomic binding to the speed of light within a single wave cycle and "switches" on a magnetic force of comparable strength. Our aim is to create these forces in a controlled fashion by generating waveform-controlled ultra-intense pulses of few-cycle near-infrared light (with LWS-20→100 and PFS), and use these controlled forces for steering the motion, both collective (plasma waves) and individual (direct vacuum acceleration) of relativistic electrons with attosecond precision and utilize this never-before-existing technical capability for developing compact, ultra-brilliant sources of energetic photons, electrons, protons and ions, for a number of applications in science, technology and medicine. Until the availability of PFS, ATLAS-100 will also serve as an invaluable workhorse for the pursuit of these goals.
main areas of research and development currently include:
main areas of research and development currently include:
- intense attosecond XUV/SXR pulses from overdense relativistic plasmas
- few-cycle-driven electron acceleration, relativistic electron metrology and control
- scaling laser-driven electron acceleration towards GeV energies and nC charges
- generation of brilliant undulator radiation with laser-accelerated electrons
- ultrabright ion and electron/X-ray beams from mass-limited targets
- investigating ways of transporting energy into fusion targets
- towards medical/biological applications of laser-generated ion and X-ray beams
Fig. 1. Light wave sythesizer (LWS-20). LWS-20 is a 20 TW sub-10-fs light source based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). OPCPA provides higher gain and broader bandwidth than conventional laser amplifiers. (© thn)
Fig. 2. MPQ’s high-power Ti:Sapphire laser ATLAS formerly produced 35 fs, 1J, 30 TW laser pulses at 10 Hz repetition rate and a central wavelength of 800 nm. It is upgraded to 100 TW. (© thn)
Fig. 3. High-field atto-science: the rotating target allows the generation of attosecond pulse trains from relativistic laser-surface interaction at a 10-Hz repetition rate. Each laser pulse creates a crater (visible in the picture) on fresh target surface. (© thn)