Brief introduction to ion acceleration : Undoubtedly, the acceleration of charged particles has been one of the most active research fields in the physics of laser-matter interaction all along the last ten years. In itself, laser driven ion acceleration was already a well known phenomenon although essentially circumscribed to the thermal expansion of the coronal plasma typical of nano and sub-nanosecond low intensities laser pulses interaction regimes.

CEA/DSM/IRAMIS/SPAM/MEC :

Imaging XUV interferometer : Internal conversion frequency imaging interferometer at 32nm   Interferometry allows for getting electronic density information in 2D. For this purpose, we have set up, in collaboration with Attophysic group and LCF-IO, an innovative instrument based on the mutual coherence properties of two High order Harmonic (HHG) from gas jet in the XUV domain. Interferometry, in this wavelength domain, exhibits strong difficulties, due to handling of the beams.

Members of MHDE group : Permanent researchers : Thomas Blenski +33 1 69 08 96 64 thomas.blenski@cea.fr Theory: physic of dense plasmas Michel Poirier +33 1 69 08 46 29 michel.poirier@cea.fr Theory: atomic physic Frédéric Thais +33 1 69 08 15 73 frederic.thais@cea.fr Experiences on high energy lasers and interpretation PhD students : Robin Piron +33 1 69 08 65 14 robin.piron@cea.

Perspectives : Next steps in research on laser driven ion acceleration in Saclay Relying on a rich set of human resources, technical expertise and equipment, we are going to implement an ambitious program of research. a) Energy scaling laws Most of the existing models wich are supposed to give scaling laws about  proton beams main features (maximum energy, number of accelerated particles) seem better suited to high-energy and "long" duration (~ ps) laser pulses.

Photo gallery :

Plasma diagnostic : .....................

Reflectivity measurement in the XUV domain : Spectrally and temporally resolved reflectivity measurement for studying the temporal evolution of a dense plasma of interest for the Warm Dense Matter problematic... The properties of Warm Dense Matter ( WDM - solid density and temperature of several eV's ) are a subject of strong interest among a wide scientist community ranging from astrophysicists to solid-state physicists.

Transmission measurement in the XUV domain : Temporal evolution of XUV transmission with 100fs resolution for characterizing plasmas created by intense irradiation of thin polypropylene foils.    The plasma is created by intense irradiation (I≈3x1017W/cm2) of thin polypropylene foils, on UHI10 laser facility (CEA-Saclay). The pedestal, which could damages the target before the arrival of the intense part of the laser pulse, has been reduced implementing plasma mirror on the laser system.