靶结构对激光等离子体动量耦合系数的影响

强激光与靶相互作用产生的等离子体可以作为一种新型的推进源.就强激光与靶相互作用过程中，靶结构对激光等离子体动量耦合系数的影响进行了研究.结果表明，相对于无约束的平面靶，坑靶将动量耦合系数提高了5倍，而约束的平面靶将动量耦合系数提高了10倍以上.分析发现，对等离子体的有效约束是提高动量耦合系数的主要原因. 关键词： 激光等离子体 推进 动量耦合系数     

填充预等离子体通道靶激光电子加速研究北大核心CSCD

采用紧聚焦的超强短脉冲激光与固体通道靶相互作用是获得大电量、高准直相对论电子束的一种有效方式。实验中由于激光预脉冲烧蚀靶壁产生预等离子体会膨胀、填充到真空通道中,从而导致电子束品质发生变化。采用二维PIC粒子模拟程序研究了通道靶中填充预等离子体的电子加速过程。模拟结果显示,在功率密度为5.0×10^(20W/cm^(2))的超强短脉冲激光条件下,通道中填充一定密度的等离子体时激光场优先与低密度等离子体相互作用,激光脉冲与通道壁的相互作用减弱,电子加速机制由纵向场主导的真空电子加速转变为横向电场主导的等离子体电子加速,产生电子束具有更大的电荷量,但能量降低,发散角增大。     

激光与固体靶相互作用中低密度预等离子体对高能电子产生的影响

 对线极化、圆极化的超短超强激光脉冲与靶前有一段低密度预等离子体的固体靶的相互作用进行了理论和粒子模拟研究。激光通过有质动力加速机制加速预等离子体中的电子，研究了电子获得的最大能量随激光强度和预等离子体密度的变化。当激光脉冲与靶直接作用时，靶中的电子由于J×B机制而得到加速，所获得的能量比预等离子体中电子低。研究表明，在超短超强激光脉冲与固体靶相互作用中，预等离子体的存在有利于高能电子的产生。     

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介绍了在神光Ⅱ装置上开展的长脉冲2ns三倍频激光与黑腔靶相互作用的实验。报道了采用PIN探测器阵列测量大角度受激Raman散射（SRS）角分布和采用激光卡计对背向SRS光能量积分测量的实验结果。相同实验条件下激光辐照缝靶产生的SRS光能量要强于激光与全腔靶作用产生的SRS光，小腔靶的SRS光能量要强于标准腔靶。对比长脉冲2ns及短脉冲1ns激光打靶实验结果可以看出：由于激光功率密度的下降，长脉冲激光打靶时SRS散射光能量要弱于短脉冲激光打靶。长脉冲2ns激光与标准腔靶相互作用时，等离子体堵腔比较严重。     

靶与光斑尺寸对激光冲量影响的数值模拟

采用二维雷诺平均N-S方程,数值模拟研究了大气条件下短脉冲激光与固体靶相互作用所产生等离子体的动力学过程。采用k-ε两方程模型用于湍流的数值模拟,分别利用ROE格式和二阶中心格式对对流通量和粘性通量进行离散处理;用高斯-赛德尔隐式格式对方程进行时间推进求解。数值模拟给出了激光引发靶蒸气等离子体侧向膨胀、稀疏等二维流体动力学过程的物理图像,讨论了靶与光斑尺寸对脉冲激光冲量的影响。结果表明,不同宽度固体靶受到的激光冲量有很大差异,固体靶宽度越大,受到的激光冲量也越大。     

激光与固体靶面烧蚀等离子体的能量耦合计算

 强激光辐照下固体靶表面迅速汽化产生靶蒸气等离子体,激光穿过等离子体区到达固体靶表面的过程就是激光束与等离子体的能量耦合与交换过程。采用具有五阶精度的WENO差分格式和简易等离子体状态方程模型对激光与等离子体相互作用的复杂物理过程进行了数值计算,分析了激光束能量在等离子体区中的吸收、屏蔽效应等动态耦合规律以及激光支持等离子体前驱冲击波传播。数值模拟结果表明：激光能量是支持靶面等离子体运动的唯一原因,能量屏蔽效应对激光与等离子体能量耦合有很大影响,通过控制激光脉冲宽度,可以合理调节屏蔽效应的影响。     

激光等离子体推进中靶动量测量方法的改进

总结了激光等离子体推进中靶动量的测量方法,设计了双光束测量方法.该方法能够减小靶宽度和靶的运动速度对测量结果的影响.     

相对论圆偏振激光与固体靶作用产生高次谐波

超短超强激光与固体靶表面等离子体相互作用可以通过高次谐波的方式产生从极紫外到软X射线波段的相干辐射,获得飞秒甚至阿秒量级的超短脉冲,可用于观测原子或分子中的电子运动等超快动力学过程.本文实验研究了相对论圆偏振飞秒激光与固体靶相互作用的高次谐波产生过程,实验结果表明,在较大入射角下,圆偏振激光也可以有效地产生高次谐波辐射.通过预脉冲控制靶表面的预等离子体密度标长,发现高次谐波的产生效率随密度标长的增加而单调下降.进一步通过二维粒子模拟程序,分析了激光的偏振以及预等离子体密度标长对高次谐波产生的影响,很好地解释了实验观测结果.     

超短超强激光与液体的相互作用研究

超短超强激光与液体靶相互作用时表现出许多有趣的特点，这明显区别于激光脉冲与固体或气体靶的相互作用情况．文章分别介绍了激光诱发等离子体所产生的高压冲击波、激光空泡、X射线、高能超热电子以及白光，对它们的产生机制及其各自的显著特征进行了综合描述．文章最后对超短超强激光脉冲与各种不同形态的液体靶相互作用的应用前景作了简单介绍。     

激光入射角对靶面方向超热电子发射的影响

实验研究了超短超强激光脉冲与薄膜靶相互作用中产生的超热电子角分布随激光入射角的变化.在靶面方向观测到一束方向性很好的高能超热电子.该高能超热电子束的电子数目随着激光入射角的增大而增大.对结果的分析表明，表面准静态磁场是导致表面电子产生的主要原因. 关键词： 超热电子 表面准静态磁场 超强激光脉冲与等离子体相互作用     

双束探测光测量激光等离子体动量

提出了一种对激光等离子产生的靶速度进行测量的新方法。该方法除了对烧蚀靶的速度进行直接测量外,而且测量结果不受靶宽度及探测光束的影响。与理论值相比,该方法的实验测量误差小于2%。此外,利用该测量方法对激光烧蚀不同温度下液体水的动量进行了测量,结果发现随水温度的降低,产生的动量呈现增加趋势。     

Characteristic investigation of ablative laser propulsion driven by nanosecond laser pulses

The momentum transfer and the specific impulse of the ablative laser propulsion of nanosecond laser irradiation on copper, lead, aluminum and graphite targets are investigated. The effects of the ambient pressure and laser focal spot sizes on the target momentum are measured. The results show that the target momentum strongly relates to the ambient pressure and target property. The highest target momentum about 2.28 g·cm/s is obtained on lead targets under 1 atmospheric pressure. With the increase of the focal spot sizes, the specific impulse decreases. The highest specific impulse in vacuum is about 950 s on copper targets. PACS 52.75.Di; 52.38.Mf; 52.50.Jm     

甘油的黏度对激光等离子体推进的影响

以液体甘油为烧蚀靶材,研究了不同环境温度下超短脉冲激光烧蚀后产生的等离子体的推进特性.实验结果表明:甘油产生的动量和烧蚀压力与环境温度密切相关,其原因是甘油的黏度受温度影响较大.     

Nd-Glass laser with plasma mirror

A high power pulse Nd-glass laser system with plasma mirror is studied. Plasma is created on the surface of a solid target and the action is superradiantly triggered. Long trains of modelocked pulses are generated if the carbon or metal targets are used and Q-switched pulses are observed with dielectric targets like PVC. Tens of joules of light energy are extracted from the laser medium and absorbed by plasma in both regimes. Spatial and temporal structures of the laser beam are very reproducible, the laser action is insensitive to variations in air pressure inside the target chamber. Stimulated Brillouin back-scattering in the underdense plasma is discussed as the nonlinear mechanism governing the plasma reflectivity.     

Long duration light emission from femtosecond laser–target interactions

Time resolved emission from the interaction of ultra-short (∼200 fs) laser pulses with aluminum and copper targets was investigated. Measurements show that emission from the laser produced plasma in air is significantly more intense than in near vacuum conditions and that the emission in air can extend for periods exceeding 100 ns. Modeling the laser–target–air coupling shows that the laser–target interaction can lead to blast wave shock waves being launched in the ambient air and that the emission from the shocked air dominates over emission from the target surface. The long term emission measurements in air are in agreement with the modeling results.     

Vapour and plasma ignition thresholds for visible pulsed-laser ablation of metallic targets

The coupling of visible nanosecond laser pulses to metallic targets irradiated in vacuum is studied. The expressions of the vapour and plasma ignition times are obtained. Two cases for vapour breakdown in the plasma ignition process are considered. The first case is that 40 generations of new electrons are born in vapour generation time before plasma formation as assumed in the literature. The second case is that 10 generations of new electrons are born in vapour generation time. Molybdenum (Mo), niobium (Nb) and aluminium (Al) targets are considered for illustrations of our results. The expression of the plasma ignition time for the Al target is substantially different from that reported in the literature. The vapour and plasma ignition threshold laser intensities are calculated and compared with those reported in the literature. Reasons for disagreement are discussed. The plasma ignition threshold estimated in the second case is noted to be in good agreement with the reported experimental result.     

Study on the optimum parameters for laser-solid interaction

The optimum parameters for laser propulsion are discussed, such as laser induced pressure on targets, interaction parameters (Cm, Isp) and optimum laser intensity Is, etc. It is verified that the larger laser power density will induce higher thrusting force. It is also found that, to drive a 1.010-kg target during confined laser ablation in vacuum and a 17.45-g one during direct laser ablation in air at the standard pressure, the needed minimum power intensities are on the same order of magnitude.     

Momentum spectra for dynamically assisted Schwinger pair production

Recently the dynamically assisted Schwinger mechanism, i.e., electron–positron pair production from vacuum by a combination of laser pulses with different time scales has been proposed. The corresponding results, which suggest that the rate of produced pairs is significantly enhanced by dynamical effects, are verified. Employing the framework of quantum kinetic theory intrinsically enables us to additionally provide momentum space information on the generated positron spectrum.     

Vacuum heating of solid target irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses

The interaction of femtosecond laser pulses with solid targets was studied through experiments and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. It is proved that the vacuum heating and the inverse bremsstralung process are the main mechanisms of the laser pulse absorption under such conditions. The distribution of hot electrons and that of X-ray are found to have double-temperature structure, which is confirmed by PIC simulations. While the lower temperature is attributed to the resonant absorption, the higher one, however, is caused by the laser-induced electric field in the target normal direction. The time-integrated spectra ofthe reflected laser pulse shows that the mechanism of electron acceleration is determined by the plasma density profile.     

Thrust enhancement via gel-type liquid confinement of laser ablation of solid metal propellant

Laser propulsion has been developed as a suitable small thruster technology for the attitude control of micro and nano class satellites. Laser-based thrusters meet the satellite design criteria for being of light weight and cost effective, because they do not require fuel storing and oxidizer for combustion. Also, thrust control by laser propulsion is achieved fairly easy. In this paper, we consider the confinement of plasma expansion by a gel-type liquid material, which results in the enhancement of the thrust for propulsion. We also present our attempts to resolve some known issues regarding laser ablation of solid and liquid targets. The level of thrust is quantified via the momentum coupling coefficient, which was experimentally measured using a ballistic pendulum system. We have discovered that the laser ablation confinement by the gel-type medium results in 2.3 times more enhanced driving force as compared to the water confinement. A proof of performance is demonstrated for using gel-type material for generating propulsion, and material characterization for optimal thrust performance is presented.