NanoXCan team gathered in Hannover, at the Rathaus, with international experts on IDI to discuss the potential of the technique for the NanoXCan X-ray microscope. The workshop was complemented by a 2 day work meeting of the project team.
Patrícia Estrela won second place for best poster awards, at the Ultrafast Optics Conference. The prize was sponsored by Amplitude.
Pablo Claveria from IST today participated in the epp team’s Journal Club by reviewing the F. Frost et al PRL paper “Imaging via Correlation of X-Ray Fluorescence Photons”. It was followed by a live demonstration of varying speckle size at the VOXEL lab.
If you want to see the epp click on the link: http://epp.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/team/
In order to optimise the energy coupling from a laser pulse to a finite-size spherical solid target, we have performed a Bayesian optimisation study using a reduced model based on 2D Osiris simulations. The numerical scheme, showed in the figure, optimises the laser duration, wavelength and particle density of the spherical solid target for the maximum K-alpha ionisation yield. In this way we can explore the multidimensional parameter space to optimise the X-rays K-alpha production from the laser-target interaction.
Mariana Cunha da Silva has been working on Spectral Broadening and post-compression, at the Voxel lab in IST.
During this experiment Mariana mentioned that in order to achieve pulses in the very limit of temporal duration requires not only an ultrashort laser system, such as the ones available in the laboratories of the GoLP team but also a post-compression installation, an extra set of equipment that broadens the spectrum allowing, after, the temporal compression of the pulse.
Here we see how the pulse spectrum changes while propagating inside a Hollow Core Fiber, a thin cylindrical piece of glass filled with a noble gas, in this case, Argon.
On 12th of May 2023, as part of the Physics week at IST, Mariana Cunha da Silva gave a presentation about the NanoxCAN to students.
One of the topics of the presentation was the “Dive in the plasma realm”.
NanoxCan partners and researchers met in Hannover, between 25th and 26th of April 2023.
The meeting took place in Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany and conducted by Dr. Milutin Kovacev. During the first day it was presented the updates for the project as well as discussed the upcoming steps for the Horizon 2020 Pathfinder Project. The Hannover PIs and researchers gave a tour and guided visit to the they’re laboratory and an exclusive visit to the lab that is currently under construction. At the end of the first day everyone had the chance to visit the Einstein Elevator, located at the Hannover Institute of Technology, were it was also showed a demonstration video.
On the second day it was given the last updates, it was planned a strategy for the communication and dissemination of the project.
“Semana das Profissoões” in Liceu Camões, in Lisbon is a week destined to students learn about different jobs. The Auditorium at Camões High School was packed with science students from 11th e 12th grade. Dr. Marta Fajardo was invited to speak along a Biologist and a Forensics Analyst.
On the 31st of March 2023, the External Supervisory Committee (ESC) do APPLAuSE visited the labs in Instituto Superior Técnico. During the visit Dr. Marta Fajardo explained the project and they assisted to some lab rotations.
Dr. Jean-Christophe Chanteloup and Dr. Milutin Kovacev (NanoxCAN WP1&2 leaders) attended the Ultrafast Optics conference 13th edition (UFOXIII) in Bariloche, Argentina, from March 26th to 31st 2023.
Dr. Milutin Kovacev presented a poster entitled “X-ray dose rate and spectral measurements from ultrafast laser-matter interaction” while Dr. Jean-Christophe gave a talk entitled “High average/peak powers Coherent Beam Combination digital lasers”.
Among the numerous interesting talks given, 3 raised interest with respect to the NanoXCAN scientific work:
– Amit Agrawal, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology gave an invited talk entitled: “Arbitrary Space-time Wave Packets Synthesis” where he addressed the ability to tailor an ultrafast pulse on demand. A task carrying far-reaching impacts on numerous fields, including NanoxCAN. He demonstrates that the arbitrary spatiotemporal synthesis of ultrafast optical transients by leveraging the multifunctional control of light at the nanoscale offered by metasurfaces (see image of the nanopillars bellow), enabling ready-synthesis of complex space-time wave packets over an ultrawide bandwidth. Contacts were made and discussions are ongoing for potential sample testing on XCAN laser.
– Christoph Heyl, from German Electron Synchrotron DESY, 2. Helmholtz-Institute Jena gave an invited talk entitled: “Opportunities for ultrafast lasers and nonlinear optics opened by multi-pass cells” where he explained that nonlinear multi-pass cells (MPCs) have brought along exciting possibilities to the field of ultrafast optics, ranging from great advances for post-compressed ultrafast lasers to novel frequency conversion schemes. He discussed the opportunities offered by MPCs and addressed the issue of Laser induced Damaged Threshold (LIDT)/high average power management/reflectivity of the mirrors used in such cavities, a key point for nanoXCAN.
– Simon Vallières, from University of Waterloo, Canada presented a method to generate MeV-ranged high dose-rate electron beams in ambient air through the tight focusing of a mJ-class femtosecond laser. They demonstrate that relativistic intensities can be obtained reached, a goal we share with nanoXCAN.
You can find more information in this link: (https://ultrafastoptics2023.org/)
