Acquisition of Laser Equipment for the Study of the Interaction of Intense Laser Impulses with Fast Ion Beams and Neutral Systems

Kansas State University, Manhattan KS

Investigators

Abstract

This MRI award provides for the purchase of two ultrafast laser systems that will serve as the backbone for a two-component high-intensity pulsed laser facility in the J. R. Macdonald (JRM) Laboratory in the Physics Department of Kansas State University. The program that the equipment will enable represents a marriage of intense laser technology with the ion-beam and momentum-imaging expertise and capabilities existing presently in the JRM Laboratory. Taken together, the two capabilities will allow the study of the mechanisms whereby electrons are removed from charged and neutral targets by intense laser pulses and the study the interaction of (multiply) charged ions with targets "dressed" by intense radiation fields. The equipment will be available to all users of the JRM facility, including graduate and undergraduate students, post-docs, faculty, and outside users.