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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Pushing the limits of plasma length in inertial-fusion laser-plasma interaction experiments
D H Froula1, L Divol, R A London
1L-399, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551, USA. froula1@llnl.gov
Abstract:
We demonstrate laser beam propagation and low backscatter in laser produced hohlraum plasmas of ignition plasma length. At intensities I < 5 x 10(14) W cm(-2) greater than 80% of the energy in a blue (3 omega, 351 nm) laser is transmitted through a L=5-mm long, high-temperature (Te = 2.5 keV), high-density (ne = 5 x 10(20) cm(-3)) plasma. These experiments show that the backscatter scales exponentially with plasma length which is consistent with linear theory. The backscatter calculated by a new steady state 3D laser-plasma interaction code developed for large ignition plasmas is in good agreement with the measurements.
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