We have recently proposed a new technique of plasma tailoring by laser-driven hydrodynamic shockwaves generated on both sides of a gas jet [Marquès et al., Phys. Plasmas 28, 023103 (2021)]. In a continuation of this numerical work, we study experimentally the influence of the tailoring on proton acceleration driven by a high-intensity picosecond laser in three cases: without tailoring, by tailoring only the entrance side of the picosecond laser, and by tailoring both sides of the gas jet. Without tailoring, the acceleration is transverse to the laser axis, with a low-energy exponential spectrum, produced by Coulomb explosion. When the front side of the gas jet is tailored, a forward acceleration appears, which is significantly enhanced when both the front and back sides of the plasma are tailored. This forward acceleration produces higher-energy protons, with a peaked spectrum, and is in good agreement with the mechanism of collisionless shock acceleration (CSA). The spatiotemporal evolution of the plasma profile is characterized by optical shadowgraphy of a probe beam. The refraction and absorption of this beam are simulated by post-processing 3D hydrodynamic simulations of the plasma tailoring. Comparison with the experimental results allows estimation of the thickness and near-critical density of the plasma slab produced by tailoring both sides of the gas jet. These parameters are in good agreement with those required for CSA.

Coherent motion of particles in a plasma can imprint itself on radiation. The recent advent of high-power lasers—allowing the nonlinear inverse Compton-scattering regime to be reached—has opened the possibility of looking at collective effects in laser–plasma interactions. Under certain conditions, the collective interaction of many electrons with a laser pulse can generate coherent radiation in the hard x-ray regime. This perspective paper explains the limitations under which such a regime might be attained.

Directed x-rays produced in the interaction of sub-picosecond laser pulses of moderate relativistic intensity with plasma of near-critical density are investigated. Synchrotron-like (betatron) radiation occurs in the process of direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electrons in a relativistic laser channel when the electrons undergo transverse betatron oscillations in self-generated quasi-static electric and magnetic fields. In an experiment at the PHELIX laser system, high-current directed beams of DLA electrons with a mean energy ten times higher than the ponderomotive potential and maximum energy up to 100 MeV were measured at 1019 W/cm2 laser intensity. The spectrum of directed x-rays in the range of 5–60 keV was evaluated using two sets of Ross filters placed at 0° and 10° to the laser pulse propagation axis. The differential x-ray absorption method allowed for absolute measurements of the angular-dependent photon fluence. We report 1013 photons/sr with energies >5 keV measured at 0° to the laser axis and a brilliance of 1021 photons s-1 mm-2 mrad-2 (0.1%BW)-1. The angular distribution of the emission has an FWHM of 14°–16°. Thanks to the ultra-high photon fluence, point-like radiation source, and ultra-short emission time, DLA-based keV backlighters are promising for various applications in high-energy-density research with kilojoule petawatt-class laser facilities.

Forty-five years after the Apollo and Luna missions, China’s Chang’e-5 (CE-5) mission collected ∼1.73 kg of new lunar materials from one of the youngest basalt units on the Moon. The CE-5 lunar samples provide opportunities to address some key scientific questions related to the Moon, including the discovery of high-pressure silica polymorphs (seifertite and stishovite) and a new lunar mineral, changesite-(Y). Seifertite was found to be coexist with stishovite in a silica fragment from CE-5 lunar regolith. This is the first confirmed seifertite in returned lunar samples. Seifertite has two space group symmetries (Pnc2 and Pbcn) and formed from an α-cristobalite-like phase during “cold” compression during a shock event. The aftershock heating process changes some seifertite to stishovite. Thus, this silica fragment records different stages of an impact process, and the peak shock pressure is estimated to be ∼11 to 40 GPa, which is much lower than the pressure condition for coexistence of seifertite and stishovite on the phase diagram. Changesite-(Y), with ideal formula (Ca8Y)□Fe2+(PO4)7 (where □ denotes a vacancy) is the first new lunar mineral to be discovered in CE-5 regolith samples. This newly identified phosphate mineral is in the form of columnar crystals and was found in CE-5 basalt fragments. It contains high concentrations of Y and rare earth elements (REE), reaching up to ∼14 wt. % (Y,REE)2O3. The occurrence of changesite-(Y) marks the late-stage fractional crystallization processes of CE-5 basalts combined with silicate liquid immiscibility. These new findings demonstrate the significance of studies on high-pressure minerals in lunar materials and the special nature of lunar magmatic evolution.

In traditional high-pressure–temperature assembly design, priority has been given to temperature insulation and retention at high pressures. This limits the efficiency of cooling of samples at the end of experiments, with a negative impact on many studies in high-pressure Earth and planetary science. Inefficient cooling of experiments containing molten phases at high temperature leads to the formation of quench textures, which makes it impossible to quantify key compositional parameters of the original molten phase, such as their volatile contents. Here, we present a new low-cost experimental assembly for rapid cooling in a six-anvil cubic press. This assembly not only retains high heating efficiency and thermal insulation, but also enables a very high cooling rate (∼600 °C/s from 1900 °C to the glass transition temperature). Without using expensive materials or external modification of the press, the cooling rate in an assembly (∼600 °C/s) with cube lengths of 38.5 mm is about ten times faster than that in the traditional assembly (∼60 °C/s). Experiments yielding inhomogeneous quenched melt textures when the traditional assembly is used are shown to yield homogeneous silicate glass without quench textures when the rapid cooling assembly is used.

In an experiment performed on the Shenguang-III prototype laser facility, collective Thomson scattering (TS) is used to study the spatial growth of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a gas-filled hohlraum by detecting the SBS-driven ion acoustic wave. High-quality time-resolved SBS and TS spectra are obtained simultaneously in the experiment, and these are analyzed by a steady-state code based on the ray-tracing model. The analysis indicates that ion–ion collisions may play an important role in suppressing SBS growth in the Au plasma; as a result, the SBS excited in the filled gas region is dominant. In the early phase of the laser pulse, SBS originates primarily from the high-density plasma at the edges of the interaction beam channel, which is piled up by the heating of the interaction beam. Throughout the duration of the laser pulse, the presence of the TS probe beam might mitigate SBS by perturbing the density distribution around the region overlapping with the interaction beam.

We present an application of short-pulse laser-generated hard x rays for the diagnosis of indirectly driven double shell targets. Cone-inserted double shell targets were imploded through an indirect drive approach on the upgraded SG-II laser facility. Then, based on the point-projection hard x-ray radiography technique, time-resolved radiography of the double shell targets, including that of their near-peak compression, were obtained. The backlighter source was created by the interactions of a high-intensity short pulsed laser with a metal microwire target. Images of the target near peak compression were obtained with an Au microwire. In addition, radiation hydrodynamic simulations were performed, and the target evolution obtained agrees well with the experimental results. Using the radiographic images, areal densities of the targets were evaluated.

Multiaxial neutron/x-ray imaging and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction techniques play a crucial role in gaining valuable insights into the generation and evolution mechanisms of pulsed radiation sources. Owing to the short emission time (∼200 ns) and drastic changes of the pulsed radiation source, it is necessary to acquire projection data within a few nanoseconds in order to achieve clear computed tomography 3D imaging. As a consequence, projection data that can be used for computed tomography image reconstruction at a certain moment are often available for only a few angles. Traditional algorithms employed in the process of reconstructing 3D images with extremely incomplete data may introduce significant distortions and artifacts into the final image. In this paper, we propose an iterative image reconstruction method using cylindrical harmonic decomposition and a self-supervised denoising network algorithm based on the deep image prior method. We augment the prior information with a 2D total variation prior and a 3D deep image prior. Single-wire Z-pinch imaging experiments have been carried out at Qin-1 facility in five views and four frames, with a time resolution of 3 ns for each frame and a time interval of 40 ns between adjacent frames. Both numerical simulations and experiments verify that our proposed algorithm can achieve high-quality reconstruction results and obtain the 3D intensity distribution and evolution of extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission from plasma.

Entropy production in quasi-isentropic compression (QIC) is critically important for understanding the properties of materials under extreme conditions. However, the origin and accurate quantification of entropy in this situation remain long-standing challenges. In this work, a framework is established for the quantification of entropy production and partition, and their relation to microstructural change in QIC. Cu50Zr50 is taken as a model material, and its compression is simulated by molecular dynamics. On the basis of atomistic simulation-informed physical properties and free energy, the thermodynamic path is recovered, and the entropy production and its relation to microstructural change are successfully quantified by the proposed framework. Contrary to intuition, entropy production during QIC of metallic glasses is relatively insensitive to the strain rate γ̇ when γ̇ ranges from 7.5 × 108 to 2 × 109/s, which are values reachable in QIC experiments, with a magnitude of the order of 10-2kB/atom per GPa. However, when γ̇ is extremely high (>2×109/s), a notable increase in entropy production rate with γ̇ is observed. The Taylor–Quinney factor is found to vary with strain but not with strain rate in the simulated regime. It is demonstrated that entropy production is dominated by the configurational part, compared with the vibrational part. In the rate-insensitive regime, the increase in configurational entropy exhibits a linear relation to the Shannon-entropic quantification of microstructural change, and a stretched exponential relation to the Taylor–Quinney factor. The quantification of entropy is expected to provide thermodynamic insights into the fundamental relation between microstructure evolution and plastic dissipation.

Evidence for metallization in dense oxygen has been reported for over 30 years [Desgreniers et al., J. Phys. Chem. 94, 1117 (1990)] at a now routinely accessible 95 GPa [Shimizu et al., Nature 393, 767 (1998)]. However, despite the longevity of this result and the technological advances since, the nature of the metallic phase remains poorly constrained [Akahama et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4690 (1995); Goncharov et al., Phys. Rev. B 68, 224108 (2003); Ma, Phys. Rev. B 76, 064101 (2007); and Weck et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 255503 (2009)]. In this work, through Raman spectroscopy, we report the distinct vibrational characteristics of metallic ζ-O2 from 85 to 225 GPa. In comparison with numerical simulations, we find reasonable agreement with the C2/m candidate structure up to about 150 GPa. At higher pressures, the C2/m structure is found to be unstable and incompatible with experimental observations. Alternative candidate structures, C2/c and Ci, with only two molecules in the primitive unit cell, are found to be stable and more compatible with measurements above 175 GPa, indicative of the dissociation of (O2)4 units. Further, we report and discuss a strong hysteresis and metastability with the precursory phase ϵ-O2. These findings will reinvigorate experimental and theoretical work into the dense oxygen system, which will have importance for oxygen-bearing chemistry, prevalent in the deep Earth, as well as fundamental physics.