High intensity, ultrashort light pulses are revolutionizing science and technology in exciting ways, whether it is laboratory simulation of astrophysical phenomena, relativistic optics, particle acceleration on a tabletop, real time x-ray diffraction of molecules, or medical therapies for cancer. Such pulses can heat a piece of matter to intra-stellar temperatures at high density. It is this feature of ultrashort pulses that helps us devise compact, novel radiation sources for applications.

This talk will present some novel efforts in the generation of hard x-ray sources from solid target plasmas, that can be applied to studies in many areas of science and technology. Great progress has been made by the discovery that the nano spatial scale plays an important role in the generation of these emissions. Using examples from our research, we will see how nanoparticles, nanowires, nanotubes and periodic nanostructures influence the generation of very high energy electrons, which in turn generate hard x-rays. It is also interesting to see that the study of the x-ray emission process itself is leading to great advances in attosecond dynamics in atoms and molecules. We will conclude by presenting the emergence of high efficiency tabletop sources at the other extreme, namely the terahertz region, with another example from our work and the implications for probing matter in this regime.

Pour assister au séminaire ou pour avoir accès à son enregistrement, contactez la coordonnatrice du programme (genevieve.boudreau@inrs.ca).

Pour la série complète des séminaires, visitez : ultrafast-coast-to-coast.ca.