Simulation and experimental studies of a laser-driven accelerator towards performing space radiation tests

Date

2023-7-24

Author

Yiğitoğlu Keskin, Merve

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

239
views

156
downloads

Cite This

Chirped Pulse Amplification technology allows using high-power (TW/PW) short-pulse (fs) lasers to accelerate particles in a laboratory, known as laser-driven acceleration (LDA), which have several applications. In recent years, since LDAs can produce a mixed environment of particles such as electrons, protons, as well as ions in a wide energy range similar to that in space, a few concepts have been demonstrated to show that LDAs can be used as a primary tool for next-generation space radiation studies, especially for electron tests. In this thesis, the potential of using LDA to accelerate protons and ions to perform space radiation tests of electronic components and materials intended for space use has been demonstrated by Particle-In-Cell simulations. Energy spectra of H+ and C+6 ions produced by high-power laser and plasma interactions were found to be comparable to the spectra and fluences from four different Earth orbits at different altitudes in space, using simulations. This new approach, which can produce wide energy ranges of different particles in a single shot of an LDA system, can provide a technique for spectral-based ion radiation tests. Experimental studies confirm this capability of LDA were performed using the 1 PW VEGA-3 laser at CLPU using helium and CO2 gas and found to be consistent with numerical simulations. Helium ions are observed to undergo electron exchange in the surrounding neutral gas, which produces different charge state ions and neutral atoms. In this experiment, a few charge states of carbon and oxygen ions as well as negative ions from CO2 gas were accelerated, which will be the first experiment reporting the negative ions producing using the stated acceleration mechanism.

Subject Keywords

Laser-driven acceleration, Space radiation, Particle-In-Cell simulations, Spectral-based ion radiation tests, Helium ions

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105096

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis