Professor Simon Hooker

Abstract:

We give on overview of recent advances in collisionally pumped optical field-ionization soft X-ray lasers developed at LOA. Saturated amplification has been achieved on the 5d-5p transition in Xe8+ at 41.8 nm, and on the 4d-4p transition in Kr8+ at 32.8 nm. We demonstrate a significant increase of the energy output from the Xe8+ laser driven within two types of wave-guide. Finally, we present results of a pioneering work aimed to set up and characterize the first true soft X-ray laser chain.

Abstract:

We present calculations of the small-signal gain coefficient, gain length, and output energy of a recombination laser in Ar7+ driven by optical field ionization. Simulations are presented for both 400 and 800 nm pump radiation, and for two targets containing mixtures of argon and hydrogen: a gas cell, and a gas-filled capillary discharge waveguide. Extremely high values for the small-signal gain coefficient are calculated for the 4s-3p transition at 23.2 nm using a pump wavelength of 400 nm for both the gas cell and waveguide. Operation in the waveguide is predicted to greatly increase the XUV laser output owing to a large increase of the gain length. The calculations also show that use of the waveguide allows significant single-pass gain to be achieved even with pump radiation of 800 nm wavelength. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

This paper describes an experiment to demonstrate, for the first time, laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA), driven by 10.6-μm light from a CO2 laser. This experiment is also noteworthy because it will operate in a pseudoresonant LWFA regime, in which the laser-pulse-length is too long for resonant LWFA, but too short for self-modulated LWFA. Nonetheless, high acceleration gradients are still possible. This experiment builds upon an earlier experiment called staged electron laser acceleration (STELLA), where efficient trapping and monoenergetic laser acceleration of electrons were demonstrated using inverse free electron lasers. The aim is to apply the STELLA approach of laser-driven microbunch formation followed by laser-driven trapping and acceleration to LWFA. These capabilities are important for a practical electron linear accelerator based upon LWFA. © 2005 IEEE.

Abstract:

We report a significant increase of the output of a 41.8-nm Xe 8+ laser achieved by means of multimode guiding of high-intensity femtosecond laser pulses in a gas-filled dielectric capillary tube. The optimized lasing signal from a 15-mm-long capillary was nearly an order of magnitude higher than that from a gas cell of the same length. Simulations of the propagation of the pump laser pulse in the capillary confirmed that this enhancement is due to reflections from the capillary wall, which increase the length of the Xe 8+ plasma column generated. The influence of gas pressure and focusing position on the lasing is also presented. © 2005 The American Physical Society.