Newsletter February 2016
Dear colleagues and friends of the HI Jena,
welcome to the February issue of our institute newsletter.
Below you find informations and news about recent activities of the HI Jena.
Best Regards,
Helmholtz Institute Jena
POLARIS Sets New Record
Foto: Jan-Peter Kasper/FSU
Scientists from the Helmholtz-Institute Jena and the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena have reached a new milestone: After a significant upgrade of the laser system POLARIS carried out in 2015, its maximum output energy after the final amplifier could be increased by more than a factor of three. POLARIS is a high-power laser system employing Yb-doped solid state laser materials which are entirely pumped by high-power laser diodes which both promises a high wall plug efficiency and a high repetition rate. The recent improvement in pulse energy became possible both by a reconfiguration of POLARIS’ amplifier design and by an improvement of the performance properties of the amplification crystals in the last amplifier. The achieved pulse energy of 54.16 Joules sets a new world record for a fully diode-pumped, high-power laser system, which is based on the technique of chirped-pulse amplification (CPA).
In addition to this improvement in energy, a reduction in pulse duration could be achieved by carefully pre-shaping the wavelength spectrum of the amplified pulses. The output spectrum of the pulses centered at 1030 nm now reaches a bandwidth of more than 20 nm (FWHM), which can support a final pulse duration of less than 100 fs after amplification. While the maximum peak power of the laser pulses, which can currently be generated by POLARIS to be used in high-intensity experiments, e.g. on particle acceleration, is limited by the final pulse compressor to 200 TW, this clearly shows the potential of this laser concept.
POLARIS is one of the central large-scale infrastructures operated by the Helmholtz-Institute Jena. It is used for high-intensity experiments on particle acceleration and generation of ultra-short pulses of secondary radiation. Furthermore, the POLARIS laser system is a testbed for other solid-state diode pumped laser systems. The results achieved with POLARIS are therefore very promising for upcoming laser systems like PENELOPE operated at HZDR in Dresden or PHELIX at GSI in Darmstadt, which can be improved based on the recent results achieved at POLARIS in Jena.
News and Announcements
Funding from the Helmholtz Postdoc Programme
Dr. Christian Kohlfürst who received his PhD from the Univerity of Graz in 2015 about "Electron-positron pair Production in inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields" will join the HI Jena in April 2016 with a grant by the Helmholtz Association. Over the next three years, he will be receiving 300,000 euros as part of the Helmholtz Postdoc Programme, in order to pursue a research topic of his own choosing and to establish himself in his field of research. HI Jena and the Helmholtz Association will each contribute half of the funds. Dr. Christian Kohlfürst is the second person to receive a Helmholtz Postdoc grant at the HI Jena (after Dr. Renate Märtin).
The Helmholtz Postdoc Programme is aimed at young scientists and academics who have earned a PhD at a scientific institution in Germany or abroad within the past year or who are about to do so. By promoting them, the Helmholtz Association wants to help talented young scientists to further develop their scientific excellence effectively. The grant is meant to pay their own salary and that of a technical assistant, if required, as well as covering travel expenses.
New "Forschergruppe" at HI Jena
In cooperation with FSU Jena, the HI Jena has recently been awarded with a "Forschergruppe: XUV-Technologie und -Verfahren für Bildgebung mit nano-skaliger Auflösung (Nano-XUV)" funded for the next three years by the Federal State of Thuringia and the European Social Fund.
Publication Database
Please help us to keep our publication database up to date!
It is very important that we always have a complete list of all the publications of the HI Jena. As a publication of the HI Jena we regard all publications where at least one of the authors has stated the HI Jena in his/her affiliations. Peer-review publications can be directly submitted to our data base via the upload of a Bibtex file. This is very convenient as nearly all journals provide the bibliographic information of their articles as a download in the Bibtex format. The upload works as follows:
- go to www.hi-jena.de
- in the right upper corner log in, using the credentials distributed earlier
- now go to "Publications"->"Upload publication"
- upload the missing publications as a Bibtex file
- if you encounter a problem, please contact Günter Weber
Reminder: Annual Report 2015
Dear colleagues, please do not forget to submit your contributions to the Annual Report of the HI Jena!
As announced earlier via email, the deadline is March, 15th 2016.
Please send your contributions directly to m.guenther@gsi.de and d.seipt@gsi.de .
Upcoming events
PSAS’2016: International Conference on Precision Physics of Simple Atomic Systems
Jerusalem, Israel
The conference is devoted to precision studies of simple atoms and molecules in order to develop new approaches and to access various fundamental issues within and beyond atomic physics, and possible new physics. Applications include aspects from particle and nuclear physics, atomic and molecular physics, astrophysics, metrology, etc.
Conference topics include :
- Precision spectroscopy of hydrogen, its isotopes and other light atoms
- Precision frequency measurements and determination of fundamental constants
- Quantum electrodynamics and advanced quantum mechanics
- Study of pure leptonic systems, muonic and exotic atoms
- Study of few-electron ions with medium and high Z
- Search for variation of fundamental constants and tests of fundamental symmetries
- Casimir Effect and its applications
- Structure of light nuclei and other hadronic effects
- Fundamental constants of particle physics
- Quantum Information
- (Astrophysics and Cosmology)
- (New SI system)
Conference Website: http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~gron/PSAS2016/PSAS2016.html
43rd European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics
KU Leuven, Belgium
The 43rd European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics will take place in Leuven, Belgium, from 4 to 8 July 2016. This series of EPS plasma physics conferences is organized by the EPS Plasma Physics Division and covers the wide field of plasma physics, ranging from nuclear fusion research to low temperature plasmas, including space and astrophysical plasmas as well.
Conference website: https://kuleuvencongres.be/eps2016
HGS-HIRe Summer Student Program at GSI/FAIR
GSI Helmholtz Center, Darmstadt, Germany
The summer school is offered to undergraduate students (Bachelor, Master or Diploma). It is jointly organized by the GSI Helmholtz Center and the HGS-HIRe graduate school. More information can be found here.
Applications can be submitted by February 15th, 2016.
17th Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop (AAC 2016)
National Harbor, Maryland, USA
The 17th Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop (AAC 2016) will be held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center from July 31st to August 5th, 2016.
AAC 2016 is a by-invitation-only biennial forum for intensive discussions on long-term research in advanced accelerator physics and technology, for applications ranging from high energy physics to photon science. AAC 2016 will organize into working groups covering the following topical areas:
- Laser-Plasma Wakefield Acceleration
- Computations for Accelerator Physics
- Laser and High-Gradient Structure-Based Acceleration
- Beam-Driven Acceleration
- Beam Sources, Monitoring, and Control
- Laser-Plasma Acceleration of Ions
- Radiation Generation and Advanced Concepts
- Advanced Laser and Beam Technology and Facilities
Conference Website: http://aac2016.org/
18th International Conference on the Physics of Highly Charged Ions (HCI-2016)
Kielce, Poland
The 18th International Conference on the Physics of Highly Charged Ions will be held from 11 to 16 September 2016 in Kielce, Poland. The HCI-2016 follows a series of biennial HCI conferences, with last three meetings held in San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina, 2014), Heidelberg (Germany, 2012) and Shanghai (China, 2010). The HCI-2016 will be organized by the Institute of Physics of the Jan Kochanowski University (UJK) in Kielce, which is located in Central Poland in the heart of the Holy Cross Mountains, just between Warsaw (Warszawa) and Cracow (Krakow), the present and former Polish capitals.
The scope of the HCI-2016 as well as organization details can be found in attached 1st Announcement and the conference website: http://www.ujk.edu.pl/hci2016
SPARC Topical Workshop 2016
Krakow, Poland
The 13th SPARC Topical Workshop will take place between 16th and 20th September 2016 at Marian Smoluchowski Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.
Topics include
- Atomic Collisions with Highly Charged Ions
- Critical and Super-critical Fields
- Laser and X-ray Spectroscopy
- Cross-link between Atomic and Nuclear Physics
- CRYRING: Status and Instrumentation
- HESR: Status and Instrumentation
- HITRAP: Status and Instrumentation
- APPA cave: Experiments and Instrumentation
- SPARC Relevant International Facilities
- Status SPARC Collaboration
Workshop website: http://sparc2016.if.uj.edu.pl
Recently finished theses
Performance scaling of laser amplifiers via coherent combination of ultrashort pulses
A. Klenke
(2016)
Methoden und Möglichkeiten der hochpräzisen Röntgenpolarimetrie
K. S. Schulze
(2015)
https://www.db-thueringen.de/receive/dbt_mods_00027286
Recent publications
Determination of the carrier envelope phase for short, circularly polarized laser pulses
A. Titov, B. Kämpfer, A. Hosaka, T. Nousch, and D. Seipt
Phys. Rev. D 93, 045010 (2016)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.93.045010
Nanometer resolution optical coherence tomography using broad bandwidth XUV and soft x-ray radiation
S. Fuchs, C. Rödel, A. Blinne, U. Zastrau, M. Wünsche, V. Hilbert, L. Glaser, J. Viefhaus, E. Frumker, P. Corkum, E. Förster, and G. G. Paulus
Sci. Rep. 6, 20658 (2016)
doi: 10.1038/srep20658
Direct inversion of digital 3D Fraunhofer holography maps
S. G. Podorov, and E. Förster
Appl. Opt. 55, A150 (2016)
doi: 10.1364/AO.55.00A150
Relativistically prolonged lifetime of the 2s2p 3P0 level of zero nuclear-spin beryllium-like ions
S. Fritzsche, A. Surzhykov, and A. Volotka
New J. Phys. 17, 103009 (2015)
http://stacks.iop.org/1367-2630/17/i=10/a=103009
Generation of 25-TW Femtosecond Laser Pulses at 515 nm with Extremely High Temporal Contrast
M. Hornung, G. Becker, A. Seidel, J. Reislöhner, H. Liebetrau, L. Bock, S. Keppler, A. Kessler, M. Zepf, J. Hein, and M. Kaluza
Appl. Sci. 5, 1970 (2015)
doi: 10.3390/app5041970
Spin-orbit interaction in bremsstrahlung and its effect on the electron motion in a strong Coulomb field
O. Kovtun, V. Tioukine, A. Surzhykov, V. Yerokhin, B. Cederwall, and S. Tashenov
Phys. Rev. A 92, 062707 (2015)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.92.062707
Temporal Shaping of High Peak Power Pulse Trains from a Burst-Mode Laser System
J. Körner, J. Reiter, J. Hein, and M. Kaluza
Appl. Sci. 5, 1790 (2015)
doi: 10.3390/app5041790
A squid-based beam current monitor for FAIR/CRYRING
R. Geithner, F. Kurian, H. Reeg, M. Schwickert, R. Neubert, P. Seidel, and T. Stöhlker
Phys. Scripta 2015, 014057 (2015)
http://stacks.iop.org/1402-4896/2015/i=T166/a=014057
Effect of bound-state dressing in laser-assisted radiative recombination
R. Müller, D. Seipt, S. Fritzsche, and A. Surzhykov
Phys. Rev. A 92, 053426 (2015)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.92.053426
Extremely Nonlinear Optics Using Shaped Pulses Spectrally Broadened in an Argon-or Sulfur Hexafluoride-Filled Hollow-Core Fiber
A. Hoffmann, M. Zürch, and C. Spielmann
Appl. Sci. 5, 1310 (2015)
doi: 10.3390/app5041310
Generation of overdense and high-energy electron-positron-pair plasmas by irradiation of a thin foil with two ultraintense lasers
H. X. Chang, B. Qiao, Z. Xu, X. R. Xu, C. T. Zhou, X. Q. Yan, S. Z. Wu, M. Borghesi, M. Zepf, and X. T. He
Phys. Rev. E 92, 053107 (2015)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.92.053107
High average power 2 mum few-cycle optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier at 100-kHz repetition rate
Y. Shamir, J. Rothhardt, S. Hädrich, S. Demmler, M. Tschernajev, J. Limpert, and A. Tünnermann
Opt. Lett. 40, 5546 (2015)
doi: 10.1364/OL.40.005546
Identification and reduction of unwanted stray radiation using an energy- and position-sensitive Compton polarimeter
K.-H. Blumenhagen, U. Spillmann, T. Gaßner, A. Gumberidze, R. Märtin, N. Schell, S. Trotsenko, G. Weber, and T. Stöhlker
Phys. Scripta 2015, 014032 (2015)
http://stacks.iop.org/1402-4896/2015/i=T166/a=014032
Noncollinear Polarization Gating of Attosecond Pulse Trains in the Relativistic Regime
M. Yeung, J. Bierbach, E. Eckner, S. Rykovanov, S. Kuschel, A. Sävert, M. Förster, C. Rödel, G. Paulus, S. Cousens, M. Coughlan, B. Dromey, and M. Zepf
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 193903 (2015)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.193903
Self-compression in a solid fiber to 24 MW peak power with few-cycle pulses at 2 μm wavelength
C. Gaida, M. Gebhardt, F. Stutzki, C. Jauregui, J. Limpert, and A. Tünnermann
Opt. Lett. 40, 5160 (2015)
doi: 10.1364/OL.40.005160
Limitations of Extreme Nonlinear Ultrafast Nanophotonics
C. Kern, M. Zürch, and C. Spielmann
Nanophotonics 4, 303 (2015)
doi: 10.1515/nanoph-2015-0013
Vacuum birefringence in strong inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields
F. Karbstein, H. Gies, M. Reuter, and M. Zepf
Phys. Rev. D 92, 071301 (2015)
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.92.071301
APPA at FAIR: From fundamental to applied research
Th. Stöhlker, V. Bagnoud, K. Blaum, A. Blazevic, A. Bräuning-Demian, M. Durante, F. Herfurth, M. Lestinsky, Y. Litvinov, S. Neff, R. Pleskac, R. Schuch, S. Schippers, D. Severin, A. Tauschwitz, C. Trautmann, D. Varentsov, and E. Widmann
Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. B 365, 680 (2015)
doi: 10.1016/j.nimb.2015.07.077
Generation of multi-millijoule red-shifted pulses for seeding stimulated Raman backscattering amplifiers
B. Landgraf, A. Hoffmann, D. Kartashov, F. Gärtner, Z. Samsonova, P. Polynkin, J. Jacoby, T. Kühl, and C. Spielmann
Opt. Express 23, 7400 (2015)
doi: 10.1364/OE.23.007400
Photo-acoustic spectroscopy and quantum efficiency of Yb3+ doped alumino silicate glasses
S. Kuhn, M. Tiegel, A. Herrmann, C. Rüssel, S. Engel, C. Wenisch, S. Gräf, F. Müller, J. Körner, R. Seifert, F. Yue, D. Klöpfel, J. Hein, and M. Kaluza
J. Appl. Phys. 118, 103104 (2015)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4929819
Ultrafast electron kinetics in short pulse laser-driven dense hydrogen
U. Zastrau, P. Sperling, C. Fortmann-Grote, A. Becker, T. Bornath, R. Bredow, T. Döppner, T. Fennel, L. B. Fletcher, E. Förster, S. Göde, G. Gregori, M. Harmand, V. Hilbert, T. Laarmann, H. J. Lee, T. Ma, K. H. Meiwes-Broer, J. P. Mithen, C. D. Murphy, M. Nakatsutsumi, P. Neumayer, A. Przystawik, S. Skruszewicz, J. Tiggesbäumker, S. Toleikis, T. G. White, S. H. Glenzer, R. Redmer, and T. Tschentscher
J. Phys. B 48, 224004 (2015)
http://stacks.iop.org/0953-4075/48/i=22/a=224004
Electron impact ionization cross-sections for few-electron uranium ions
M. Guerra, T. Stöhlker, P. Amaro, J. Machado, and J. P. Santos
J. Phys. B 48, 144027 (2015)
http://stacks.iop.org/0953-4075/48/i=14/a=144027