Anisotropic Surface Broadening and Core Depletion during the Evolution of a Strong-Field Induced Nanoplasma

Camila Bacellar, Adam S. Chatterley, Florian Lackner, C. D. Pemmaraju, Rico Mayro P. Tanyag, Deepak Verma, Charles Bernando, Sean M. O. O’Connell, Maximilian Bucher, Ken R. Ferguson, Tais Gorkhover, Ryan N. Coffee, Giacomo Coslovich, Dipanwita Ray, Timur Osipov, Daniel M. Neumark, Christoph Bostedt, Andrey F. Vilesov, and Oliver Gessner
Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 073201 – Published 12 August 2022
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Abstract

Strong-field ionization of nanoscale clusters provides excellent opportunities to study the complex correlated electronic and nuclear dynamics of near-solid density plasmas. Yet, monitoring ultrafast, nanoscopic dynamics in real-time is challenging, which often complicates a direct comparison between theory and experiment. Here, near-infrared laser-induced plasma dynamics in 600nm diameter helium droplets are studied by femtosecond time-resolved x-ray coherent diffractive imaging. An anisotropic, 20nm wide surface region, defined as the range where the density lies between 10% and 90% of the core value, is established within 100fs, in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions. At longer timescales, however, the width of this region remains largely constant while the radius of the dense plasma core shrinks at average rates of 71nm/ps along and 33nm/ps perpendicular to the laser polarization. These dynamics are not captured by previous plasma expansion models. The observations are phenomenologically described within a numerical simulation; details of the underlying physics, however, remain to be explored.

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  • Received 15 September 2021
  • Revised 30 April 2022
  • Accepted 29 June 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.073201

© 2022 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Camila Bacellar1,2,*, Adam S. Chatterley1,2,†, Florian Lackner1,2,‡, C. D. Pemmaraju1,§, Rico Mayro P. Tanyag3,†, Deepak Verma3, Charles Bernando4, Sean M. O. O’Connell3,∥, Maximilian Bucher5, Ken R. Ferguson6, Tais Gorkhover6,7,8,¶, Ryan N. Coffee6, Giacomo Coslovich6, Dipanwita Ray6, Timur Osipov6, Daniel M. Neumark1,2, Christoph Bostedt5,6,9,*,**, Andrey F. Vilesov3,4,††, and Oliver Gessner1,‡‡

  • 1Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 2Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 3Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
  • 4Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
  • 5Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue B109, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 6Linac Coherent Light Source, LCLS, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
  • 7Institute of Optics and Atomic Physics, Technical University of Berlin, Hardenbergstraße 36, 10623 Berlin, Germany
  • 8Stanford PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
  • 9Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

  • *Present address: Paul Scherrer Institut, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland.
  • Present address: Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University, Langelandsgade 140, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
  • Present address: Institute of Experimental Physics, Graz University of Technology, Petersgasse 16, A-8010 Graz, Austria.
  • §Present address: IBM, San Jose, California 95141, USA.
  • Present address: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Miami, Florida 33149, USA.
  • Present address: University of Hamburg, Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany.
  • **Corresponding author. christoph.bostedt@psi.ch
  • ††Corresponding author. vilesov@usc.edu
  • ‡‡Corresponding author. ogessner@lbl.gov

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Issue

Vol. 129, Iss. 7 — 12 August 2022

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