January 6, 2021 Dataset Open Access

Data for: Bremsstrahlung emission and plasma characterization driven by moderately relativistic laser–plasma interactions

Singh, Sushil; Armstrong, Chris D.; Kang, Ning; Ren, Lei; Liu, Huiya; Hua, Neng; Rusby, Dean R.; Klimo, Ondřej; Versaci, Roberto; Zhang, Yan; Sun, Mingying; Zhu, Baoqiang; Lei, Anle; Ouyang, Xiaoping; Lancia, Livia; Laso Garcia, Alejandro; Wagner, Andreas; Cowan, Thomas E.; Zhu, Jianqiang; Schlegel, Theodor; Weber, Stefan; McKenna, Paul; Neely, David; Tikhonchuk, Vladimir; Kumar, Deepak

Relativistic electrons generated by the interaction of petawatt-class short laser pulses with solid targets can be used to generate bright x-rays via bremsstrahlung. The efficiency of laser energy transfer into these electrons depends on multiple parameters including the focused intensity and pre-plasma level. This paper reports experimental results from the interaction of a high intensity petawatt-class glass laser pulses with solid targets at a maximum intensity of 10¹⁹ W cm⁻². In-situ measurements of specularly reflected light are used to provide an upper bound of laser absorption and to characterize focused laser intensity, the pre-plasma level and the generation mechanism of second harmonic light. The measured spectrum of electrons and bremsstrahlung radiation provide information about the efficiency of laser energy transfer.