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ANL Research HighlightsThe focus of my work at Argonne was the development of a Terawatt Ultrahigh Field Facility (TUHFF) in the Chemistry Division and its application in generation of ultrashort high energy electron and x-ray pulses for ultrafast chemistry research. TUHFF houses a home-build 20 terawatt Ti:Sapphire laser system delivering 800 nm 30 femtosecond pulses of 0.6 Joule energy per pulse at 10 Hz repetition rate. The output of the laser was focused into a 1 mm He jet reaching about 10 19 Watts/cm 2 peak intensities. At these peak intensities all He atoms' electrons in the jet were ionized and some of them were accelerated to relativistic energies through the laser wakefield acceleration mechanism. The goal of our group was to use the electron beam as a pump source in ultrafast pump-probe radiation chemistry experiments. We were able to generate ultrafast electron bunches with 2.5 nanoCoulomb charge per bunch and subpicosecond pulse duration at the sample. The electron beam had a very wide spectrum with an average energy of 3 MeV and a long tail reaching 10s of MeV.The system was successfully employed in ultrafast radiolysis experiments, 2 picosecond resolution time was demonstrated (this is one of the best time resolutions ever achieved in ultrafast radiolysis). This resolution time was limited by detection sensitivity and could be improved to about 0.5-1 picoseconds without redesigning the experiment. Further improvements to femtosecond range are possible by laser optimization. TUHFF could be also used to generate bright femtosecond hard x-rays through Thomson scattering of the generated electron beam and another terawatt laser beam. The modification of the existing facility allowing this was proposed; the x-ray beam characteristics were calculated. New EndeavorsCurrently I am employed as a Senior Product Development Engineer by Spectra-Physics Inc., a Division of Newport Corporation. Spectra-Physics is known for its highly successful scientific lasers and a groundbreaking engineering team. Right now I am working on the development of a promising new ultrafast laser product. |
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