Experimental and simulated coupling and spectra of hot electrons into cone-wire targets

Summary form only given. Characterizing and optimizing hot electrons accelerated by short pulse lasers is of great interest, especially for Fast Ignition (FI) research. To date, most research on electron source and transport has been done using lasers with intrinsic prepulses. However, even a relatively low amount of prepulse (1–10 mJ in 3 ns) creates an underdense plasma that causes instabilities such as filamentation and relativistic self focusing of the laser before reaching critical density. This will give rise to higher hot electron temperatures and a more divergent beam than is desireable for FI. In this work, we study hot electron acceleration at extremely high-contrast (i.e. no prepulse) so the laser interacts directly with solid density.