@article{df65ef4875e540b7956a90588e9d1227,
title = "Investigation of femtosecond collisional ionization rates in a solid-density aluminium plasma",
abstract = "The rate at which atoms and ions within a plasma are further ionized by collisions with the free electrons is a fundamental parameter that dictates the dynamics of plasma systems at intermediate and high densities. While collision rates are well known experimentally in a few dilute systems, similar measurements for nonideal plasmas at densities approaching or exceeding those of solids remain elusive. Here we describe a spectroscopic method to study collision rates in solid-density aluminium plasmas created and diagnosed using the Linac Coherent light Source free-electron X-ray laser, tuned to specific interaction pathways around the absorption edges of ionic charge states. We estimate the rate of collisional ionization in solid-density aluminium plasmas at temperatures ∼30eV to be several times higher than that predicted by standard semiempirical models.",
author = "Vinko, {S. M.} and O. Ciricosta and Preston, {T. R.} and Rackstraw, {D. S.} and Brown, {C. R.D.} and T. Burian and J. Chalupsk{\'y} and Cho, {B. I.} and Chung, {H. K.} and K. Engelhorn and Falcone, {R. W.} and R. Fiokovinini and V. H{\'a}jkov{\'a} and Heimann, {P. A.} and L. Juha and Lee, {H. J.} and Lee, {R. W.} and M. Messerschmidt and B. Nagler and W. Schlotter and Turner, {J. J.} and L. Vysin and U. Zastrau and Wark, {J. S.}",
note = "Funding Information: It is a pleasure to thank Pedro Velarde for useful discussions regarding electron thermalization dynamics. S.M.V., O.C., D.S.R. and J.S.W. wish to acknowledge support via EPSRC grant No. EP/G007187/1. S.M.V. is supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. B.I.C acknowledges support by the Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R012-D1-2014-a00). T.B., J.Ch., V.H., L.J. and L.V. appreciate financial support from the Czech Science Foundation (grant 14-29772S) and the Czech Ministry of Education (grants LH14072 and LG13029). R.W.F. acknowledges support from the Joint High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas Program under grant DENA0001859, funded by the Office of Science, Fusion Energy Sciences and the National Nuclear Security Administration, Defense Programs. Portions of this research were carried out on the SXR Instrument at the LCLS, a division of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and an Office of Science user facility operated by the Stanford University for the US Department of Energy. The SXR Instrument is funded by a consortium whose membership includes the LCLS, Stanford University through the Stanford Institute for Materials Energy Sciences (SIMES), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), University of Hamburg through the BMBF priority programme FSP 301, and the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL). We gratefully acknowledge the support of A. Scherz, C. Graves, T. Wang, B. Wu and D. Zhu in the set-up and operation of the Resonant Coherent Imaging endstation at the LCLS. Some figures for this paper were generated with the Matplotlib package37. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.",
year = "2015",
month = mar,
day = "4",
doi = "10.1038/ncomms7397",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "6",
journal = "Nature Communications",
issn = "2041-1723",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
}