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Laser-produced plasmas are plasmas produced by firing high-intensity beams of light. Laser-produced plasmas have been used to create short bursts of x-rays and to accelerate particles — so-called plasma-based accelerators. Laser produced plasmas are also useful for recreating astrophysical plasmas in the laboratory.
Recent improvements in the indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion experiments include the achievement of burning plasma state. Here the authors report the scaling of neutron yield in a burning plasma of Deuterium-Tritium fusion reaction by including the mode-2 asymmetry.
Astrophysical jets are pivotal in the process of star formation, yet the mechanism responsible for their collimation remains a topic of intense debate, largely due to the constraints imposed by astronomical observational techniques and facilities. In this study, the authors demonstrate that a wide-angle plasma plume can undergo collimation and acceleration when subjected to toroidal magnetic fields, as evidenced by all-optical laboratory experiments.
Typically, mJ lasers generate 50 keV temperature plasma electrons. Here, the authors use mJ laser pulses to chisel a liquid droplet surface and generate an electron temperature of 1 MeV, a feat previously possible only with 100 times more powerful lasers.
High-quality measurements with good statistics, especially in a single shot, require fluxes and energies beyond the current capabilities of laserbased betatron x-ray sources. Here, the authors propose a method to enhance the flux and brightness of such sources without increasing the laser energy, paving the way for single-shot x-ray measurements in ultrafast science.
Inertial confinement represents one of two viable approaches for producing energy from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes. Scientists have now achieved a record yield of fusion energy when directly irradiating targets with only 28 kilojoules of laser energy.
Particles in space can be accelerated to high energy, the distribution of which follows a power law. This has now been reproduced in laboratory experiments mimicking astrophysical scenarios, which helps to understand the underlying mechanisms.
Ignition of a millimetre-sized pellet containing a mix of deuterium–tritium, published in 2022, puts to rest questions about the capability of lasers to ignite thermonuclear fuel.
In a burning plasma, fusion-born α particles are the dominant source of heating. In such conditions, the deuterium and tritium ion energy distribution deviates from the expected thermal Maxwellian distribution.
Prof. Xi-Cheng Zhang, as a pioneer in the field of terahertz technology, has successfully generated terahertz waves using water, changing how we see water with THz wave forever.
