Optimizing a laser plasma-based X-ray source to study warm dense matter
Optimizing a laser plasma-based X-ray source to study warm dense matter lead image
X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is a widely used experimental diagnostic that uses an external X-ray source to study matter at extreme conditions. Researchers seek to perform experiments with XAS to study warm dense matter. The ability to closely evaluate the physical properties and equation of state of warm dense matter can lead to important and far-reaching implications in fields ranging from inertial confinement fusion experiments to planetary sciences.
Martynenko et al. report on the optimization of laser plasma-based X-ray sources for studying warm dense matter. The authors used experimental and theoretical approaches to determine the merits of various materials and configurations for solid targets. Their results provide other experimentalists in the field with information for tuning parameters of X-ray sources in specific warm dense matter investigations using XAS.
They measured the plasma X-ray emission spectra of solid targets with different structures and materials, irradiated with a Vulcan petawatt laser at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory in the U.K. The scope demonstrated an advantage of coated targets and resulted in target thickness optimization.
Their results demonstrated that the so-called photorecombination region of X-ray characteristic spectral emission is capable of generating featureless spectra with high intensity, making it the most suitable region of the spectrum to focus on in terms of X-ray sources for XAS. However, to receive the maximum benefit from warm dense matter studies, experimentalists would also need to achieve hot and dense plasma.
“Warm dense matter studies are receiving increasing attention for the last decade. We have already started to use optimization methods described in our article to study warm dense matter,” said author Artem Martynenko. “For example, we are going to study warm dense matter generated inside thin metal wires by laser-accelerated electron flows.”
Source: “Optimization of a laser plasma-based x-ray source according to WDM absorption spectroscopy requirements,” by A. S. Martynenko, S. A. Pikuz, I. Yu. Skobelev, S. N. Ryazantsev, C. D. Baird, N. Booth, L. N. K. Döhl, P. Durey, A. Ya. Faenov, D. Farley, R. Kodama, K. Lancaster, P. McKenna, C. D. Murphy, C. Spindloe, T. A. Pikuz, and N. Woolse, Matter and Radiation at Extremes (2020). The article can be accessed at http://doi.org/10.1063/5.0025646 .
This paper is part of the Matter in Extreme States Created by laser Collection, learn more here .
