Photonics | Interview with the Author—Dr. Martin Matys

Could you briefly introduce yourself and your current research topic to our readers?
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the ELI Beamlines Facility, Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC, located in the Czech Republic. My work focuses primarily on theory and simulations of laser–plasma interactions, particularly using particle-in-cell simulations, as well as on data visualization of complex simulation results. My main research topics include laser-driven electron and ion acceleration, as well as γ‑flash generation.

Could you describe the difficulties and breakthrough innovations encountered in your current research?
One of the main challenges in my work is the need to run and post-process extremely demanding numerical simulations and to extract physical insight from them. We primarily run fully three-dimensional simulations, while also using quasi-3D and 2D configurations when appropriate. These simulations require access to powerful supercomputers and generate massive datasets, making data handling, post-processing, and interpretation a significant part of the research effort. This has motivated the development of new, interactive visualization approaches presented in this paper that allow us to explore complex three-dimensional datasets more intuitively, share them easily with other researchers, and open new possibilities for communicating these results in engaging ways to a broader audience. For example, this visualization framework was used to illustrate a regime of γ-flash generation in which the emission is collimated parallel to the target surface, as shown in this paper and explored in more detail in a separate study.    

What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?
In our paper, we present the Virtual Beamline (VBL), an interactive visualization platform developed at ELI Beamlines. It is designed to support the exploration and interpretation of complex data from high-intensity laser–matter interactions and other mesh-based datasets, using both computer screens and virtual reality with head-mounted displays. One of the strengths of our approach is accessibility: the platform runs directly in a standard web browser and requires no installation, apart from the optional software associated with a virtual reality headset. The visualizations are hosted online, making them available to researchers, educators, and broader audiences, allowing anyone to explore and better understand the physics we study.
Looking ahead, this work provides a foundation for future advances, including the possible integration of AI-based approaches, and contributes to the creation of a shared repository of visualizations that can be easily accessed and reused.

Do you have any advice or experience that you would like to share with young researchers who want to pursue research in this field?
This work is both challenging and exciting because we are essentially working at the edge of human knowledge, looking into the unknown and exploring new physics. This requires boldness, enthusiasm, and a willingness to push forward. I try to approach it with that mindset, and I would encourage young researchers to do the same.

How were you first introduced to Photonics? What is your impression of and experience with our journal?
I have had a very good experience so far. This is my second published paper in Photonics. The first one was published in a Special Issue in 2023, where Prof. Bulanov was invited to submit a paper. We agreed that I would be the first author, and together with the other co‑authors, we prepared a paper on ion acceleration.
For this new paper, I was contacted by the journal because I had previously published here, and they asked whether I would be interested in submitting another manuscript. The timing was perfect, since I was looking for a suitable venue for this work. The paper is somewhat interdisciplinary, combining visualization and physics, and it can be challenging to find the right journal for that kind of mix.
After discussing the scope, we realized it would be a very good match. It covers all the relevant aspects, and I think choosing Photonics again was the right decision.