Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 175, 139-142 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2009-01131-6

Time and space resolved interferometry for detecting plasma expansion from solid targets

¹ LULI, École Polytechnique, CNRS, CEA, UPMC, Route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France
² Dipartimento di Energetica, Università di Roma, “La Sapienza”, via Scarpa 14-16, 00161 Roma, Italy
³ Istituto Nazionale di fisica Nucleare, via E. Fermi 40, 00040 Frascati, Italy
⁴ School of Mathematics and Physics, The Queen's University, Belfast, UK
⁵ Centre de Physique Théorique, École Polytechnique, CNRS, 91128 Palaiseau, France
⁶ DPTA, CEA-DIF, 91680 Bruyères-le-Châtel, France
⁷ Institut für Laser und Plasma Physik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätstrasse 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany

Corresponding author: patrizio.antici@polytechnique.fr

Abstract

We have used time and space resolved interferometry to measure the dynamics of a plasma expanding off the surface of a solid target. This allows accessing 1) the time- and space-resolved dynamics of the fast electrons (laser-accelerated from solids and expanding into vacuum from the rear target surface), and of the energy partition into bulk (cold) electrons and 2) the expansion velocity of an isochorically heated target, from which information about the heating process can be retrieved.