High-Energy-Density Plasma by High-Power-Lasers: Recent Advances in Secondary and Tertiary Sources, Diagnostics, and High-Repetition-Rate Operation

Dear Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure, in an act of mild editorial optimism, to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue titled “High-Energy-Density Plasma by High-Power-Lasers: Recent Advances in Secondary and Tertiary Sources, Diagnostics, and High-Repetition-Rate Operation". This Special Issue aims to bring together recent advances in science and technology within the broad domain of high-energy-density plasma physics. The topic of this Special Issue is well aligned with the scope of the journal, intended to be focused enough to maintain scientific coherence while remaining broad enough to attract a healthy number of contributions.

The Special Issue is targeted at PhD candidates and their mentors, inviting both to submit their work on contemporary challenges. It is a platform that is intended to aid PhD candidates who are confronted by the curious expectation to deliver excellence within roughly three years. After developing a substantial research project, candidates must carry out the experiments, overcome the inevitable technical setbacks, analyze the results, write and defend a coherent thesis, and at the same time publish several first-author papers in suitably prestigious journals: a striking institutionalized expression of confidence in stamina, and the elastic properties of time.

Research on high-energy-density plasma generated by high-power lasers has developed into a mature and highly active field, enabling major progress in particle acceleration, short-pulse radiation sources, laboratory astrophysics, inertial-fusion-related research, warm dense matter studies, and advanced plasma diagnostics. It is also, conveniently, a field in which every experiment appears to require a dedicated theoretical framework, heroic experimental effort, custom engineering, and at least one major failure shortly before the beamtime begins. Outcomes therefore merit their denomination as “challenging”, “state-of-the-art” and “defining”, which are aligned with the scope of this journal.

Recent developments have significantly expanded the scientific and technical reach of the field to other domains. We welcome submissions on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Laser-driven electron, proton, ion, neutron, X-ray, and gamma-ray sources
• Secondary source generation, optimization, transport, and characterization
• Diagnostics for high-energy-density plasma and intense laser–matter interaction
• Ultrafast, single-shot, and high-dynamic-range diagnostic approaches
• High-repetition-rate operation of high-power laser–plasma experiments
• Target delivery, target survivability, debris mitigation, and chamber engineering
• Automated alignment, online monitoring, and feedback-controlled operation
• Data acquisition, real-time analysis, and statistically meaningful operation at scale
• Modeling and simulation of laser-driven plasma dynamics and secondary source production
• Applications of secondary sources in imaging, probing, spectroscopy, and materials research

Contributions that combine an insight into the underlying physics with details on the practical implementation of experiments are especially encouraged, as are papers that move beyond announcing that a signal has been observed and proceed to characterize it in a manner that others might eventually reproduce.

Dr. Michael Ehret
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• high-energy-density plasma
• high-power lasers
• laser-driven sources
• secondary source generation
• laser metrology
• secondary source metrology
• ultrafast
• single-shot
• high-repetition-rate
• laser–plasma experiments
• target delivery
• target survivability
• debris mitigation
• chamber engineering
• automated alignment
• online monitoring
• feedback-controlled operation
• data acquisition
• real-time analysis
• modeling
• simulation
• laser-driven plasma dynamics
• applications of secondary sources