1. Investigation of hard x-ray emissions from terawatt laser-irradiated foils at the Matter in Extreme Conditions instrument of the Linac Coherent Light Source
- Author
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L.B. Fletcher, C.B. Curry, M. Gauthier, G.D. Glenn, Z. Chen, E. Cunningham, A. Descamps, M. Frost, E.C. Galtier, P. Heimann, J.B. Kim, M. Mo, B.K. Ofori-Okai, J. Peebles, F. Seiboth, F. Treffert, G.M. Dyer, E.E. McBride, and S.H. Glenzer
- Subjects
Instrumentation ,Mathematical Physics - Abstract
In this technical report, we investigate the hard x-ray background produced at the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) from the interaction of a high-intensity (∼1019 W/cm2) femtosecond laser with solid μm-thick aluminum and polypropylene targets. This background is dominated by bremsstrahlung from laser-generated relativistic electrons, and a measurement of the broadband x-ray spectrum via differential x-ray energy filtering was used to infer the existence of two electron distributions with electron temperatures of Thot = 500 ± 300 keV and Tcold = 5.0 ± 0.5 keV. Simultaneous single-shot measurements of the proton energies accelerated from laser-irradiated solid targets could be correlated with these measurements to further constrain the on-target laser parameters. Measurements of the hard x-ray photon background generated from laser-irradiated foils can be used to directly monitor and test the signal-to-background limits of silicon-based hybrid pixel array x-ray detectors at laser intensities approaching 1019 W/cm2.
- Published
- 2022
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