Simple scaling equations for electron spectra, currents and bulk heating in ultra-intense short-pulse laser-solid interaction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new dynamic model for laser-generated electron currents in ultra-intense laser-solid interactions, accounting for temporal variations to improve predictions of electron behavior and heating effects.

Contribution

A novel time-dependent model that captures the temporal evolution of electron currents in ultra-intense laser interactions with solid targets, surpassing previous static or simplified models.

Findings

Model accurately predicts temporal evolution of electron currents.

Spectral and spatial effects significantly influence bulk heating.

Enhanced understanding of non-linear processes in laser-solid interactions.

Abstract

Intense and energetic electron currents can be generated by ultra-intense lasers interacting with solid density targets. Especially for ultra-short laser pulses their temporal evolution needs to be taken into account for many non-linear processes as instantaneous currents may differ significantly from the average. Hence, a dynamic model including the temporal variation of the electron currents which goes beyond a simple bunching with twice the laser frequency but otherwise constant current is needed. Here we present a new time-dependent model to describe the laser generated currents and obtain simple expressions for the temporal evolution and resulting corrections of averages. To exemplify the model and its predictive capabilities we show the impact of temporal evolution, spectral distribution and spatial modulations on Ohmic heating of the bulk target material.