Current Research Project: Benchmarking collisional rates and hot electron transport in high-intensity laser-matter interaction

During high intensity laser-plasma interactions, energy is primarily coupled into the electron population close to a target’s surface. This electron population has only been indirectly diagnosed but is known to be highly dependent on both the laser parameters and the target. The first part of my project focuses on better understanding this electron population through stimulated x-ray emission spectroscopy experiments at European XFEL.

Achieving sufficiently high-resolution spectroscopy will require large numbers of laser shots from a high-repetition rate source. This links to the second objective of the project, which will explore optimising the incident laser pulses and target geometry using Bayesian Optimisation. This could then be applied to optimise the electron population to produce, for example, higher energy proton beams.

Biography:

I graduated in 2023 from the University of York with a 1st class integrated master’s degree in Physics with Astrophysics. My master’s project, supervised by Prof. Nigel Woolsey, consisted of analysis and simulations of an experiment performed at Omega looking into a novel shock-augmented ignition scheme for ICF. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to be involved in active research and to learn more about the subject, and this confirmed for me my interest in pursuing research in the field of laser-plasma physics. I began my PhD here at QUB and in collaboration with EuXFEL in September 2023.

Supervisors:

Dr Charlotte Palmer (QUB) and Dr Oliver Humphries (EuXFEL)