The paper is aimed at optimization of parameters of a copper plasma jet produced at the DPF-1000U device, in which the inner electrode face was conically shaped. Preliminary information was obtained by numerical simulations of the plasma jet creation for different copper cones with the use of the two-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic code KAROL. The simulations suggested that the cone height in the range of 4–7 cm should ensure a good plasma jet quality. The experimental data delivered by means of a 16-frame laser interferometer and a four-frame X-ray pinhole camera fully confirmed this conclusion. In the paper, we demonstrate the results for a 5 cm height cone. The eroded Cu plasma, swept up by the deuterium plasma sheath, was accelerated axially and compressed to very small diameter (3 mm) with an electron density of 7 × 1018 cm−3. The Cu plasma jet achieved a velocity of 5 × 107 cm/s and reached in the period of about 230 ns a distance (length) of 7 cm. The above results prove a successful adaptation of the plasma focus device to the metallic plasma jet generator.

The processes of trapping, compression, and acceleration of short electron bunches externally injected into the wakefields generated by intense femtosecond laser pulse in a plasma channel are analyzed and optimized. The influence of the laser non-linear dynamics to the longitudinal bunch compression and impact of the beam loading effect (self-action of the bunch charge) to the finite energy and the energy spread of the accelerated electrons are investigated. The limitations to the charge of accelerated electron bunch determined by the requirement of a small width of the electron energy distribution of the bunch are found.

The effects of shape and thickness of a tin surface layer and of the energy of a 170 ps neodymium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser pulse on the conversion efficiency (CE) into extreme ultraviolet emission in the 13.5 nm region is investigated. Whereas a CE of up to 1.16% into the 2% reflection band of multilayer Mo/Si optics was measured for a bulk Sn target at a laser energy of 25 mJ, significant CE enhancement up to 1.49% is demonstrated for a 200-nm-thick Sn layer on a microstructured porous alumina substrate.

Here a compact three orthogonal planes high-energy electron radiography system was proposed. One of the critical technologies, the ultra-fast beam bunches split from the bunch train are studied. The separated bunches could be transported to the three orthogonal planes of the target for dynamic radiography diagnostics. The key elements of the ultra-fast bunches split system are transverse deflecting cavity (TDC) and the twin septum magnet (TSM). The principle of TDC and TSM are briefly introduced. An example of the beam bunches split system for test experiment (40 MeV electron beam) with TDC and TSM is designed and studied by particle-tracking simulation and it confirms this method is valid and feasible. Especially with TSM, a compact three orthogonal planes radiography system can be realized. The evolution of the beam parameters along the beam line from simulation are investigated. The detailed design of the beam split system and beam dynamics simulation study are presented in this paper.

High-intensity pulsed ion beam (HIPIB) technology is developed as an advanced manufacturing method for components with improved wear, corrosion and/or fatigue performance, etc. Robust HIPIB equipment with stable repetitive operation, long-lifetime, and easy maintenance are desired for industrial applications, on which stability of ion beam parameters is critical to achieve consistent result of reproducibility. Here, magnetically insulated ion diodes (MIDs) as ion source with durable graphite anode are investigated in a simple self-magnetic field configuration under repetitive operation. Influence of background pressure on ion beam generation and transportation is emphasized since ion beam sources were intrinsically a vacuum-based system. Comparative experiments were conducted on two types of HIPIB equipment, that is, TEMP-6 and TEMP-4M, differing in vacuum packages where turbo-molecular pump or oil diffusion pump was used. Both the HIPIB equipments are operated on a bipolar pulse mode, that is, a first negative pulse of 150–200 kV with pulse duration 450–500 ns to generate anode plasma on explosive electron emission, and a second positive pulse of 200–250 kV with 120 ns to accelerate the ions. Ion beam energy density up to 8 J/cm2 is achievable using MIDs of geometrical focusing configuration, and the total energy, energy density distribution along cross-section, deflection and divergence, and charge neutralization of the ion beams are assessed under background pressures in a wide range of two orders of magnitude, that is, 1–100 mPa. No appreciable change in the parameters is observed up to 50 mPa, and merely a slight increase in the beam deflection from about ±3 mm to about ±4 mm at the focal point over 50 mPa. The stability of ion beam at the varied pressure is mainly facilitated by the higher pressure up to several Pa in anode–cathode gap during plasma generation and good neutralizing effect for ion beam transportation.

Dynamics and organization of laser-generated three-dimensional (3D) Richtmyer–Meshkov (RMI) and Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities (RMI and RTI) on metal target in the semiconfined configuration are different in the central region (CR) (Lugomer, 2016), near central region (NCR) (Lugomer, 2017) and the near periphery region (NPR) of the Gaussian-like spot. The RMI/RTI in the NPR evolve from the shock and series of reshocks associated with lateral expansion and increase of the vapor density, decrease of the Atwood number and momentum transfer. Scanning electron micrographs show irregular (chaotic) web of the base-plane walls, and mushroom spikes on its nodal points with disturbed two-dimensional (2D) lattice organization. Lattice disturbance is caused by the incoherent wavy motion of background fluid due to fast reshocks, which after series of reflections change their strength and direction. Reconstruction of the disturbed lattice reveals rectangular lattice of mushroom spikes with p2mm symmetry. The splitting (bifurcation) of mushroom diameter distribution on the large and small mushroom spikes increases with radial distance from the center of Gaussian-like spot. Dynamics of their evolution is represented by the orbits or stable periods in 2D phase space. The constant mushroom diameter – stable circulation or the stable periodic orbits – are the limit cycles between the unstable spiral orbits. Those with increasing periods represent supercritical Hopf bifurcation, while those leading to decrease and disappearance represent subcritical Hopf bifurcation. The empirical models of RMI, although predict dependence of the growth rate on radial distance (distance the reshocks travel to reach the interface), show many limitations. More appropriate interpretation of the simultaneous growth and lattice organization of small and large spikes give the fundamental model based on the interference of the perturbation modes depending on their amplitude, relative phase, and the symmetry. The late-time instability in the base-plane evolves into line solitons, vortex filaments and wave–vortex structures with chaotic rather than stochastic features.

A novel method to generate shock waves in small tubes is demonstrated. A femtosecond laser is applied to generate an optical breakdown an aluminum film as target. Due to the sudden appearance of this non-equilibrium state of the target, a shock wave is induced. The shock wave is further driven by the expanding high-pressure plasma (up to 10 Mbar), which serves as a quasi-piston, until the plasma recombines. The shock wave then propagates further into a glass capillary (different square capillaries with hydraulic diameter D down to 50 µm are applied). Shock wave propagation is investigated by laser interferometry. Although the plasma is an unsteady driver, due to the geometrical confinement of the capillaries, rather strong micro shocks can still propagate as far as 35 times D. In addition to the experiments, the initial conditions of this novel method are investigated by hydrocode simulations using MULTI-fs.

Production of high dynamic pressure using a strong shock wave is a topic of high relevance for high-energy-density physics, inertial confinement fusion, and materials science. Although the pressures in the multi-Mbar range can be produced by the shocks generated with a large variety of methods, the higher pressures, in the sub-Gbar or Gbar range, are achievable only with nuclear explosions or laser-driven shocks. However, the laser-to-shock energy conversion efficiency in the laser-based methods currently applied is low and, as a result, multi-kJ multi-beam lasers have to be used to produce such extremely high pressures. In this paper, the generation of high-pressure shocks in the newly proposed collider in which the projectile impacting a solid target is driven by the laser-induced cavity pressure acceleration (LICPA) mechanism is investigated using two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. A special attention is paid to the dependence of shock parameters and the laser-to-shock energy conversion efficiency on the impacted target material and the laser driver energy. It has been found that both in case of low-density and high-density solid targets, the shock pressures in the sub-Gbar range can be produced in the LICPA-based collider with the laser energy of only a few hundreds of joules, and the laser-to-shock energy conversion efficiency can reach values of 10–20%, by an order of magnitude higher than the conversion efficiencies achieved with other laser-based methods used so far.

The evolution of the spot size and amplitude of a circularly polarized laser beam propagating in a plasma channel embedded in an obliquely applied magnetic field has been investigated. The wave equation describing the evolution of the radiation field is set up and a variational technique is used to obtain the equations governing the evolution of the spot size and amplitude. Numerical methods are used to analyze the evolution of the laser beam spot size and amplitude. It is seen that the amplitudes of the two transverse components of the electric field of the laser beam evolve differently, since they are driven by unequal current densities. This leads to the conversion of a circularly polarized laser beam into an elliptically polarized beam, under appropriate conditions.

Using reductive perturbation technique, small-amplitude ion-acoustic solitary wave has been investigated in multi-component dense plasma, in which an electron beam propagates along the general streaming motion. The electrons in plasma have the q-exponential distribution. The positive and negative ions follow a regular Maxwellian distribution. It has been found that the positive and negative ion densities as well as the beam concentration have significant effect on the formation and properties of solitary structures. The streaming velocities of corresponding particles also have pronounced effect on the features of the solitons.

The effect of the initial phase distortion of the laser on near-field transmission characteristics in free space is investigated both numerically and theoretically. It is demonstrated and proposed that the near-field modulation and fluence contrast of the output laser beam are changing with the increase of both spatial low- and high-frequency wavefront distortion. The simulation results show that in order to ensure the beam quality in propagation, the Fresnel number should be controlled not <50 generally and the wavefront distortion should also be minimized by controlling both low- and high-frequency phase coefficient not larger than 0.6.

The temporal correlation between neutron and hard X-ray (HXR) emissions from a hundred joules plasma focus device (PF-400J) was studied. A method, time history analysis, to estimate the time of origin of neutrons with respect to HXRs is applied. In most of the discharges, it was found that neutrons are originated before HXRs in the axial direction and after HXRs in the radial direction. In some discharges, the time difference between HXRs and neutrons origin was found large enough, so that it can be interpreted that those neutrons would have been originated before the pinch. A qualitative discussion is conjectured to explain the experimental observations.

Suprathermal electrons produced by laser–plasma interactions at 0.53-μm laser wavelength have been investigated using 19 electron spectrometers. The targets were 2- and 10-μm-thick Al foils, while the laser average intensities were 2 × 1013 and 7 × 1014 W/cm2. A double temperature distribution was observed in the electron energy spectrum: the lower electron temperature was below 25 keV, whereas the higher was ~50 keV. The angular distribution of the total suprathermal electron energy approximately obeyed the Gaussian distribution, peaking along the k vector of the incident laser beam for perpendicular incidence. Furthermore, the conversion rate of laser energy into escaped suprathermal electron energy over the π sr solid angle was ~10−4 at $\sim \!\!10^{14} \; {\rm W}/{\rm c}{\rm m}^{\rm 2}$, increasing almost linearly with the laser intensity.

In this paper, self-focusing of asymmetric cosh-Gaussian laser beams in collisionless magnetized plasma has been studied. The non-linearity in dielectric constant considered herein is mainly due to the ponderomotive force. The non-linear coupled differential equations for the beam width parameters in transverse dimensions of the beam have been obtained by using WKB and paraxial approximations under parabolic equation approach. The numerical computation is completed by using fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. The effect of unlike decentered parameters in both transverse dimensions of the beam on self-focusing of cosh-Gaussian beams has been presented. Further, the effect of the static magnetic field and polarization modes of the laser has been explored.

Measurements are reported of the target neutralization current, the target charge, and the tangential component of the magnetic field generated as a result of laser–target interaction by pulses with the energy in the range of 45–92 mJ on target and the pulse duration from 39 to 1000 fs. The experiment was performed at the Eclipse facility in CELIA, Bordeaux. The aim of the experiment was to extend investigations performed for the thick (mm scale) targets to the case of thin (μm thickness) targets in a way that would allow for a straightforward comparison of the results. We found that thin foil targets tend to generate 20–50% higher neutralization current and the target charge than the thick targets. The measurement of the tangential component of the magnetic field had shown that the initial spike is dominated by the 1 ns pulse consistent with the 1 ns pulse of the neutralization current, but there are some differences between targets of different types on sub-ns scale, which is an effect going beyond a simple picture of the target acting as an antenna. The sub-ns structure appears to be reproducible to surprising degree. We found that there is in general a linear correlation between the maximum value of the magnetic field and the maximum neutralization current, which supports the target-antenna picture, except for pulses 100s of fs long.

This paper is an extension of our previous paper (Mašek and Rohlena, 2015), where we applied a transform method for the solution of Vlasov–Maxwell set of equations in a one-dimensional geometry to describe the Raman backscattering of the heating ns laser wave in the external corona of the generated laser plasma in a strongly non-linear regime. The method is stabilized by a simplified Fokker–Planck collision term, which, in turn, is used for a study of the influence of collisional and collisionless damping mechanisms of the daughter electron plasma wave (EPW) on the instability development and their competition resulting in a different instability behavior in various plasma configurations. The physics of trapped electrons is studied in detail and compared to the resulting Raman reflectivity. The Raman reflectivity was found to depend strongly on the intensity of laser irradiation in the different regions of the plasma corona. This is discussed in detail from the point of view of trapped electrons behavior in the EPW. Moreover, a study of the Raman reflectivity dependence on the electron–ion collision frequency (average plasma ionization) is presented, too. The results supplement the physical picture of the collision and collisionless processes influencing the Raman instability non-linear development.

In the present paper, we have studied self-focusing of Gaussian laser beam in weakly relativistic magnetized cold quantum plasma. When interparticle distance is comparable to the de Broglie wavelength of charged particles, we cannot neglect the quantum contribution of plasma constituents. Therefore, propagation characteristics are studied by taking in to account quantum contribution in the presence of static magnetic field applied along the beam propagation. Our results show that the magnetic field plays a key role in achieving additional focusing, it modifies the quiver motion of electrons by adding cyclotron frequency to the natural frequency of oscillating electrons during laser beam propagation. The results are compared with those of weakly relativistic quantum plasma and weakly relativistic magnetized plasma. The self-focusing is found to be more pronounced when axial magnetic field is increased in the present model. We have setup the non-linear differential equation for the evolution of beam-width parameter by well-known paraxial ray approximation and solved it with the help of computational technique.

An Eulerian Vlasov code is applied for the numerical solution of the one-dimensional Vlasov–Poisson system of equations for electrons, and with ions forming an immobile background. We study the non-linear evolution of the bump-on-tail instability in the case when the system length L is greater than the wavelength λ of the unstable mode, with a beam density of 10% of the total density, nb = 0.1. We follow the growth and the saturation of an initially unstable wave perturbation, and the formation of a traveling Bernstein–Greene–Kruskal (BGK) mode, which evolves out of the instability. This first stage is followed by sidebands growing from round-off errors which develop and disrupt the BGK equilibrium. In the excited spectrum, mode coupling is mediated by the oscillating resonant particles and results in the electric energy of the system flowing to the longest wavelengths (inverse cascade), and reaching in the asymptotic state a steady state with constant amplitude oscillation modulated by the persistent oscillation of the trapped particles. Coherent phase-space electron holes are formed, which are localized phase-space regions of reduced density on trapped electron orbits, where the electron density is lower than the surrounding plasma electron density. The distribution function evolves to a shape with stationary inflection points of zero slope, at the phase velocities of the excited waves. The longest wavelengths show oscillations at frequencies below the plasma frequency, with phase velocities higher than that of the injected beam, which can accelerate electrons to energies in excess of the initial beam energy. The present work makes a connection between the formation of electron holes, the existence of inflection points of zero slopes in the electron distribution function at the phase velocities of the dominant waves, and at frequencies below the plasma frequency. A fine resolution grid is used in the Eulerian Vlasov code in the phase space and time to allow an accurate calculation of the time history of the system and of the dynamic and oscillation of the trapped particles in the low-density regions of the phase space, and of those particles at the separatrix regions of the vortex structures which evolve periodically between trapping and untrapping states and which can only be accurately studied using a fine-resolution phase-space grid.

The study proposes a semi-analytical model for the pulse compression of two co-propagating intense laser beams having Gaussian intensity profile in the temporal domain. The high power laser beams create the relativistic nonlinearity during propagation in plasma, which leads to the modification of the refractive index profile. The co-propagating laser beams get self- compressed by virtue of group velocity dispersion and induced nonlinearity. The induced nonlinearity in the plasma broadens the frequency spectrum of the pulse via self-phase modulation, turn to shorter the pulse duration and enhancement of laser beam intensity. The nonlinear Schrodinger equations were set up for co-propagating laser beams in plasmas and have been solved in Matlab by considering paraxial approximation. The propagation characteristics of both laser beams inside plasma are divided into three regions through the critical divider curve, which has been plotted between pulse width τ01 and laser beam power P01. Based on the preferred value of critical parameters, these regions are oscillatory compression, oscillatory broadening, and steady broadening. In findings, it is observed that the compression of the laser beam depends on the combined intensity of both beams, plasma density, and initial pulse width.

With the aim to overcome the problems of climatic changes and rising ocean levels, one option is to produce large-scale sustainable energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen and other very light nuclei similar to the energy source of the sun. Sixty years of worldwide research for the ignition of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) have come close to a breakthrough for ignition. The problem with the DT fusion is that generated neutrons are producing radioactive waste. One exception as the ideal clean fusion process – without neutron production – is the fusion of hydrogen (H) with the boron isotope 11B11 (B11). In this paper, we have mapped out our research based on recent experiments and simulations for a new energy source. We suggest how HB11 fusion for a reactor can be used instead of the DT option. We have mapped out our HB11 fusion in the following way: (i) The acceleration of a plasma block with a laser beam with the power and time duration of the order of 10 petawatts and one picosecond accordingly. (ii) A plasma confinement by a magnetic field of the order of a few kiloteslas created by a second laser beam with a pulse duration of a few nanoseconds (ns). (iii) The highly increased fusion of HB11 relative to present DT fusion is possible due to the alphas avalanche created in this process. (iv) The conversion of the output charged alpha particles directly to electricity. (v) To prove the above ideas, our simulations show for example that 14 milligram HB11 can produce 300 kWh energy if all achieved results are combined for the design of an absolutely clean power reactor producing low-cost energy.