Few-femtosecond resolved imaging of laser-driven nanoplasma expansion

Peltz, C.; Powell, J. A.; Rupp, P.; Summers, A.; Gorkhover, T.; Gallei, M.; Halfpap, I.; Antonsson, E.; Langer, B.; Trallero-Herrero, C.; Graf, C.; Ray, D.; Liu, Q.; Osipov, T.; Bucher, M.; Ferguson, K.; Moeller, S.; Zherebtsov, S.; Rolles, D.; Ruehl, E.; Coslovich, G.; Coffee, R. N.; Bostedt, C.; Rudenko, A.; Kling, M. F. und Fennel, T. (2022): Few-femtosecond resolved imaging of laser-driven nanoplasma expansion. In: New Journal of Physics, Bd. 24, Nr. 4, 43024

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.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• ISSN: 1367-2630
• Sprache: Englisch
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 441234705
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 315210756
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 398382624
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 436382461