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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 102 » Issue 19
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 194801 (2009) [4 pages]

Laser-Driven Ultrafast Field Propagation on Solid Surfaces

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K. Quinn1,*, P. A. Wilson1, C. A. Cecchetti1,†, B. Ramakrishna1, L. Romagnani1, G. Sarri1, L. Lancia2, J. Fuchs2, A. Pipahl3, T. Toncian3, O. Willi3, R. J. Clarke4, D. Neely4, M. Notley4, P. Gallegos4,5, D. C. Carroll5, M. N. Quinn5, X. H. Yuan5, P. McKenna5, T. V. Liseykina6,‡, A. Macchi7, and M. Borghesi1
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom
2Laboratoire pour l’Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, École Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France
3Institut für Laser–und Plasmaphysik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
4Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
5SUPA, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, United Kingdom
6Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany
7CNR/INFM/polyLAB, Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Fermi,” Pisa, Italy

Received 28 January 2009; published 14 May 2009

The interaction of a 3×1019  W/cm2 laser pulse with a metallic wire has been investigated using proton radiography. The pulse is observed to drive the propagation of a highly transient field along the wire at the speed of light. Within a temporal window of 20 ps, the current driven by this field rises to its peak magnitude ∼104  A before decaying to below measurable levels. Supported by particle-in-cell simulation results and simple theoretical reasoning, the transient field measured is interpreted as a charge-neutralizing disturbance propagated away from the interaction region as a result of the permanent loss of a small fraction of the laser-accelerated hot electron population to vacuum.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.194801
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.194801
PACS:
41.75.Jv, 52.38.Kd, 52.57.Kk

*kquinn09@qub.ac.uk

†Present address: Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory, IPCF, CNR, Pisa, Italy.

‡On leave from the Institute of Computational Technologies, SD-RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia.

 
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