9:00 to 9:05
Welcome and Introduction
Pavel Bakule, ELI Beamlines (Czech Republic)
Saša Bajt, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Germany)
Optics + Optoelectronics Symposium Chairs

9:05 to 9:50
Laser-plasma interaction studies for advanced direct-drive ignition


Emma Hume
ILIL, National Institute of Optics-CNR (Italy)

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) employs high power lasers to rapidly compress and heat a fuel pellet to nuclear fusion conditions to generate energy. ICF is now receiving great enthusiasm and interest after the demonstration of fuel ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in 2022. Attention is turning towards how to transform this scientific feat into a viable approach for inertial fusion energy (IFE) production.

This includes a focus on different ICF schemes such as direct drive and shock ignition, where the high power lasers interact directly with the plasma corona around the imploding fuel pellet. However, physics issues with the laser-plasma interaction prevail and remain to be resolved such as the growth of parametric instabilities that hinder the efficacy of the implosion. These are of particular importance to shock ignition since instability growth scales non-linearly with laser intensity.

In this talk we will present an overview of recent high power laser experiments to explore parametric instabilities and mitigation methods to suppress their growth, which is of great importance in furthering fundamental understanding and improving the prospects of IFE. We will also discuss some perspectives on laser technology and optic developments needed to advance LPI studies including on the role of speckles and bandwidth on the development of these instabilities.

Dr. Emma Hume is a researcher at the Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory (ILIL), CNR-National Institute of Optics, Italy. Her research focuses on studies of laser-plasma interactions relevant to the direct drive and shock ignition variants of inertial confinement fusion, and involves experimental studies of the growth of parametric instabilities (SRS, SBS, TPD) under novel laser conditions. Recently the ILIL group has been collaborating on exploring the use of chirped and broadband laser pulses as a means of parametric instability mitigation. Emma holds a PhD in Plasma Science and Fusion Energy, understanding fast electron transport in ultra-intense laser interactions with nanowire targets.


9:55 to 10:40
Advancements in attosecond technology and applications


Francesca Calegari
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY (Germany)

The Nobel Prize in Physics awarded in 2023 underscored the transformative potential of attosecond light sources, which now grant us unprecedented insights into the electron time scale within matter. This advancement has paved the way for the emergence of attochemistry1, a novel field aiming at manipulating chemical reactivity through the precise driving of electronic motion.

In this presentation, I will first give an overview of our latest developments towards compact fewfemtosecond ultraviolet sources and VUV/soft-x ray attosecond sources. Additionally, I will highlight a variety of applications ranging from nanoplasmonic field sampling to the real-time tracking of ultrafast charge migration in photoexcited molecules2 with significant steps toward achieving charge-directed reactivity3— the ultimate objective of attochemistry.

References
1. F. Calegari, F. Martin, Commun Chem 6, 184 (2023)
2. F. Calegari et al, Science 346, 336 (2014)
3. V. Wanie et int., and F. Calegari, Nature 630, 109–115 (2024)

Francesca Calegari leads the Attosecond Science division at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science at DESY. She is also a full professor of physics at Universität Hamburg. Amongst other distinctions, she received the ICO prize and the Ernst Abbe medal from the International Commission of Optics and she is a Fellow of the Optical Society (Optica).

The main focus of her research is to track and ideally control in real time the electron dynamics occurring in systems with increasing complexity from simple molecules to molecules of biological interest and nanostructured materials. To this purpose, her group develops state-of-the-art table-top light sources providing extreme time resolution and spanning from the infrared wavelengths to the soft-x ray spectral range. She exploits attosecond technology to understand the role of electron dynamics in the photochemistry of biochemically relevant molecules including chiral molecules. Her research aims at the optimization of those process for efficient artificial light harvesting.