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By driving hot electrons between two metal plates connected by a wire loop, high power lasers can generate multi-tesla, quasi-static magnetic fields in miniature coil targets. Many experiments involving laser-coil targets rely on proton deflectometry directed perpendicular to the coil axis to extract a measurement of the magnetic field. In this paper, we show that quantitative measurements using perpendicular probing are complicated by the presence of GV m−1 electric fields in the target that develop on sub-ns timescales. Probing parallel to the coil axis with fiducial grids is shown to reliably separate the electric and magnetic field measurements, giving current estimates of I ≈ 5 kA in 1 mm- and 2 mm-diameter wire loops. An analytic model of proton deflection in electric and magnetic fields is used to benchmark results from the particle-in-cell code and help deconvolve the magnetic and electric field deflections. Results are used to motivate a new experimental scheme that combines a single-plate target with axial proton probing and direct current measurements. This scheme has several important advantages over the traditional target and diagnostic set-up, enabling the robust measurement of coil magnetic fields and plasma properties, as well as making it easier to validate different theoretical models at a range of laser intensities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnosing fast electrons is important to understand the physics underpinning intense laser-produced plasmas. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that a Cherenkov radiation-based optical fibre can serve as a reliable diagnostic to characterize the fast electrons escaping from solid targets irradiated by ultraintense laser pulses. Using optical fibre loops, the number and angular distributions of the escaping electrons are obtained. The data agree well with measurements made using image plate stacks. The optical fibre can be operated at high-repetition rates and is insensitive to x-rays and ion beams, which makes it advantageous over other routinely used fast electron diagnostics in some aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of targets with different dimensions and materials was irradiated using the VULCAN PW laser [C. N. Danson et al., Nucl. Fusion 44, S239 (2004)]. Using transverse optical shadowgraphy in conjunction with a one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics code it was possible to determine a longitudinal temperature gradient. It was demonstrated for thick targets with a low Z substrate and a thin higher Z tracer layer at the rear that the boundary between the two materials was Rayleigh–Taylor unstable. By including a simple bubble growth model into the calculations it was possible to correct for the associated behavior with regard to temperature. The resulting temperature gradient was in good agreement with the previously published data using two different methods of determining the temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A temporally and spatially resolved optical pyrometer system has been fielded on Gekko XII experiments. The system is based on the self-emission measurements with a gated optical imager (GOI) and a streaked optical pyrometer (SOP). Both detectors measure the intensity of the self-emission from laser-produced plasmas at the wavelength of 450 nm with a bandpass filter with a width of ∼10 nm in FWHM. The measurements were calibrated with different methods, and both results agreed with each other within 30% as previously reported [T. Morita et al., Astrophys. Space Sci. 336, 283 (2011)]. As a tool for measuring the properties of low-density plasmas, the system is applicable for the measurements of the electron temperature and density in collisionless shock experiments [Y. Kuramitsu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 175002 (2011)]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-spectral resolution experiments with the petawatt Vulcan laser, strong x-ray radiation of KK hollow atoms (atoms without n=1 electrons) from thin Al foils was observed at pulse intensities of 3×1020 W/cm2. The observations of spectra from these exotic states of matter are supported by detailed kinetics calculations, and are consistent with a picture in which an intense polychromatic x-ray field, formed from Thomson scattering and bremsstrahlung in the electrostatic fields at the target surface, drives the KK hollow atom production. We estimate that this x-ray field has an intensity of >5×1018 W/cm2 and is in the 3 keV range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of targets with different dimensions and materials was irradiated using the VULCAN PW laser [C. N. Danson et al., Nucl. Fusion 44, S239 (2004)]. Using transverse optical shadowgraphy in conjunction with a one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics code it was possible to determine a longitudinal temperature gradient. It was demonstrated for thick targets with a low Z substrate and a thin higher Z tracer layer at the rear that the boundary between the two materials was Rayleigh–Taylor unstable. By including a simple bubble growth model into the calculations it was possible to correct for the associated behavior with regard to temperature. The resulting temperature gradient was in good agreement with the previously published data using two different methods of determining the temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]