TY  - JOUR
AU  - Huang, Lingen
AU  - Šmíd, Michal
AU  - Yang, Long
AU  - Humphries, Oliver
AU  - Hagemann, Johannes
AU  - Engler, Thea
AU  - Pan, Xiayun
AU  - Cui, Yangzhe
AU  - Kluge, Thomas
AU  - Aguilar, Ritz
AU  - Baehtz, Carsten
AU  - Brambrink, Erik
AU  - Eren, Engin
AU  - Falk, Katerina
AU  - Laso Garcia, Alejandro
AU  - Göde, Sebastian
AU  - Gutt, Christian
AU  - Hassan, Mohamed
AU  - Heuser, Philipp
AU  - Höppner, Hauke
AU  - Kozlova, Michaela
AU  - Lu, Wei
AU  - Metzkes-Ng, Josefine
AU  - Masruri, Masruri
AU  - Mishchenko, Mikhail
AU  - Nakatsutsumi, Motoaki
AU  - Ota, Masato
AU  - Öztürk, Özgül
AU  - Pelka, Alexander
AU  - Prencipe, Irene
AU  - Preston, Thomas R.
AU  - Randolph, Lisa
AU  - Rehwald, Martin
AU  - Schlenvoigt, Hans-Peter
AU  - Schramm, Ulrich
AU  - Schwinkendorf, Jan-Patrick
AU  - Starke, Sebastian
AU  - Štefaníková, Radka
AU  - Thiessenhusen, Erik
AU  - Toncian, Monika
AU  - Toncian, Toma
AU  - Vorberger, Jan
AU  - Zastrau, Ulf
AU  - Zeil, Karl
AU  - Cowan, Thomas E.
TI  - Demonstration of full-scale spatiotemporal diagnostics of solid-density plasmas driven by an ultra-short relativistic laser pulse using an X-ray free-electron laser
JO  - Matter and radiation at extremes
VL  - 11
IS  - 1
SN  - 2468-080X
CY  - Melville, NY
PB  - AIP Publishing
M1  - PUBDB-2025-04696
SP  - 017201
PY  - 2026
AB  - Understanding the complex plasma dynamics in ultra-intense relativistic laser–solid interactions is of fundamental importance for applications of laser–plasma-based particle accelerators, the creation of high-energy-density matter, understanding planetary science, and laser-driven fusion energy. However, experimental efforts in this regime have been limited by the lack of accessibility of over-critical densities and the poor spatiotemporal resolution of conventional diagnostics. Over the last decade, the advent of femtosecond brilliant hard X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) has opened new horizons to overcome these limitations. Here, for the first time, we present full-scale spatiotemporal measurements of solid-density plasma dynamics, including preplasma generation with tens of nanometer scale length driven by the leading edge of a relativistic laser pulse, ultrafast heating and ionization at the main pulse arrival, the laser-driven blast wave, and transient surface return current-induced compression dynamics up to hundreds of picoseconds after interaction. These observations are enabled by utilizing a novel combination of advanced X-ray diagnostics including small-angle X-ray scattering, resonant X-ray emission spectroscopy, and propagation-based X-ray phase-contrast imaging simultaneously at the European XFEL-HED beamline station.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
DO  - DOI:10.1063/5.0279974
UR  - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/639993
ER  -