Liquid target system at CLPU

The liquid target system at Centros de Láseres Pulsados (CLPU) produces liquid targets in a high vacuum environment for high intense laser target interaction experiments. We can produce droplets, columns, and quasi plane shape targets with maximum sizes of few mm and thickness of microns. All of these targets are characterized by interferometer and shadography systems built at CLPU with He-Ne laser and standard basic optics. After the characterization, we used the plane micron thick target for the first experiment with the VEGA-3 laser system. In the last decades many experiments were performed for the generation of electrons in high repetition rate and finally nowadays working on the generation of ions in high repetition regime is not anymore a mirage. Besides this, various experiments were already successful in the high harmonic generation (HHG) and MeV electrons generation by liquid targets [1,2]. CLPU in Salamanca (Spain) is one of the biggest European laser facility in which 30 J, 30 fs Vega-3 laser pulse can operate at 1Hz repetition rate. In this context the liquid target is crucial for working at high repetition rate for over critical density experiments. The first experiment carried out with Vega-3 on a liquid leaf target was the preliminary step in this direction and it gave us important feedbacks that will be used in the near future experiments.

References

[1] J.T.Morrison et al. POP 22, 043101 (2015)

[2] P. Heissler et al. NJP 16, 113045 (2014)