A recent paper in Physics of Plasmas by EPP members Bernardo M and Jorge V and collaborators at Rochester University, USA, entitled “Laser-plasma acceleration beyond wave breaking” has been selected by the editors of Physics of Plasmas as a featured article. This paper discusses how superluminal plasma wakefields prevent wave-breaking of strongly nonlinear plasma waves in the blowout regime and thus self-injection of electrons into the plasma wake. This leads to enhanced and cleaner accelerating fields. Our finding could be an important step to further reduce the size and improve the quality of future plasma based accelerators.

The paper “Ultra-broadband near-IR NOPAs based on the nonlinear crystals BiBO and YCOB” by Mario Galletti et al. is featured on the cover of the latest issue of the journal High Power Laser Science and Engineering.

In this work, the GoLP/IPFN researchers from Universidade de Lisboa, in collaboration with colleagues from the Central Laser Facility, STFC, United Kingdom, consider two alternative crystals for both low- and high-energy, few-cycle optical parametric chirped pulse amplification: bismuth borate (BiBO) and yttrium calcium oxyborate (YCOB).

The experimental work was performed at IST Laboratory for Intense Lasers (L2I), where they developed a noncollinear optical parametric amplification (NOPA) setup seeded by a continuum pulse generated from a sapphire plate, operating in the near-infrared region, in order to test each crystal.

For a 5 mm YCOB crystal, they obtained an amplified bandwidth of 200 nm and a gain of ~100, and for a 2.5 mm BiBO crystal they obtained an amplified bandwidth of 240 nm…

EPP members were awarded best image and video awards in the APS DPP 2020 Visual Science Communication. This contest was hosted during the 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, held online on November 9-13 2020. Kevin S was awarded the 1st place video award, whereas Fabio C and Pablo B were awared the 2nd place image and video awards, respectively. An Honorable Mention was also awarded to Fabio C in the video category. These images and videos are representative of the research presented in talks and posters presented at APS DPP 2020.

Óscar Amaro was awarded a scholarship “Novos Talentos em Tecnologias Quânticas” by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. In the next 10 months, Óscar will work on a research project that aims to apply quantum algorithms to a plasma physics problem, under supervision of Marija Vranic. This program has an objective to stimulate young scholars to study Quantum Technologies, thereby stimulating the development of national competences in this field.

Óscar Amaro’s Undergraduate Research session presentation “Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser electron scattering” at this year’s Virtual APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) meeting was awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Poster award. This is 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS DPP, and for the first time it was held 100% online. Ellen Zweibel, a world-renowned astrophysicist handed in the award in a virtual ceremony.

Thomas Wodzinski defended successfully his PhD thesis on October 14, 2020 and passed with Distinction. He was awarded a fellowship in the APPLAuSE doctoral program on Plasma Science and Engineering in 2015 and joined GoLP for his thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marta Fajardo (IST) and Dr. Elke Plönjes-Palm (FLASH, DESY).

During his PhD, Thomas performed research at the Laboratory for Intense Lasers and the VOXEL lab at IST. He manipulated the wavefront of High-Harmonics in the XUV by adapting the wavefront of the driving infrared laser with a deformable mirror. In collaboration with DESY, he made use of wavefront sensors to characterize both beams. He implemented simulations that confirm the observed filter for higher-order aberrations.

He also participated in measurements at the Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée LOA (Paris, France) and the Laboratory Interactions, Dynamics and Lasers LIDYL (CEA-Saclay, Paris, France) as part of the Laserlab Europe initiative.

During his secondment…

Our scientific communication project “Turbulence | Voice of Space” was recently featured in European Research Council (ERC) social media. In a video created in the context of the ERC Public Engagement with Research Award announcement, Luis OS explains how creating virtual reality (VR) environments from real simulation data helped us engage experts and the general public with our research on extreme plasma astrophysics. Learn more about our VR Lab and check our demos here.

EPP team member Óscar Amaro won a best student presentation award in the 3rd Laser-Plasma Summer School held at Centro de Lásers Pulsados in Salamanca. Óscar presented his work on “Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser electron scattering”. This is his second distinction this month. Óscar was also awarded a poster prize in Encontro Física 2020, a national meeting held remotely for the Portuguese physics community. Congratulations Óscar!

In a paper published today, September 14, in the journal Nature Physics, Extreme Plasma Physics (EPP) team members Jorge V., Miguel P. and Ricardo F. along with the founder of GoLP, Tito M., report a generalised superradiance mechanism, which uses transversely modulated – instead of longitudinally modulated – charged particle beams. Superradiant emission is desirable because it leads to the brightest x-ray beams, being at the core of free electron lasers. It has been long thought that the existence of many particles per radiated wavelength is a key requirement for superradiance. Fulfilling this requirement is a challenge, but according to the work published today, superradiance can occur even for bunches that are arbitrarily diluted, as long as they are suitably modulated in a transverse direction. This work thus breaks a long standing tenet at the core of today’s most advanced light sources. Generalised superradiance may…

EPP team member Fabrizio del G has successfully defended his PhD thesis on September 8, 2020. Due to the current pandemic situation, Fabrizio’s defence was held remotely. His thesis committee was composed by Mattias Marklund (University of Gothenburg), Dmitri Uzdensky (University of Colorado Boulder), Jorge Vieira (IST) and Thomas Grismayer (IST), and was presided by Luis Lemos Alves (IST). Many congratulations to Fabrizio and the best wishes for his future life and career.

Mario Galletti defended successfully his PhD thesis on June 4, 2020, being awarded the top final grade of Approved with Distinction Cum Laude.

During his PhD, Mario worked on different topics ranging from optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers, laser-matter interaction and laser and plasma diagnostics. He performed research at the Laboratory for Intense Lasers, IST, at the VULCAN laser, Central Laser Facility (UK) and at the FLAME laser, INFN (Italy). He integrated the APPLAuSE 2016 class and joined GoLP for his thesis, under the supervision of Gonçalo Figueira (IST) and Marco Galimberti (CLF-STFC, UK).

In particular, Mario worked on the design and development of highly efficient fs/ps pumping stages in the visible, ultra-broadband OPA stages in the femtosecond and picosecond regime and the associated relative temporal diagnostics. He also investigated the experimental parameters behind Target Normal Sheath Acceleration, a laser-solid interaction technique for accelerating ions.

Mario authored and co-authored a large number…

In 2020, the Ministry of Science celebrates 25 years of the first Ministry of Science in Portugal. Our team will be present with the installation of Giannandrea I and Fabio C, Turbulence Voice of Space and GoLP VR Lab on April 17th 2020 in Teatro Thalia.

And now they come in three flavours! Following our tradition (see the “2014 Natas”, “2015 Natas”, “2016 Natas”, “2017 Natas”, “2018 Natas“), the prizes for the winners of the image, video, and VR of 2019, the “natas” of visualization, were awarded to Kevin Schoeffler (center), Nitin Shukla (right, in the slide, 2nd time winner), and Fabio Cruz (left, 4th time winner). The term “Nata” was coined by one of the previous winners Paulo Alves: “Nata” is a tasty Portuguese pastry that everybody likes. It’s as enjoyable as having our simulations running nicely on a big supercomputer. It can also mean being at the top, at a high level, important.” Nata is also a new open source visualisation framework recently launched by epp team members. Many congratulations to the 2019 winners! The images and videos have been posted on the team website here and will…

We are opening a call for partial time Junior Research Placements (Estágios de Introdução à Investigação) for March – September 2020 (extendable). See details here.

Luis OS will deliver a plenary talk at the 47th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics (EPS2020) in Sitges near Barcelona, Spain, that will be held from June 22 to 26, 2020. The talk will address recent advances in the emerging field of extreme plasma physics.

On December 5 2019, Luis OS was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon. Founded in 1779, the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, comprises two classes (Sciences and Letters), each with seven sections, with up to 5 members and 10 corresponding members per class. Luis OS was elected in the section of Physics.

Happy holidays to all our researchers, professionals, families, alumni, and friends, and a Happy 2020 with lots of personal and professional successes and great science! (and don´t forget to check the GoLP VR Lab with your new Oculus!)

In the most recent call for funding within an agreement between the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) and CERN, GoLP/IPFN researchers Nelson Lopes and Jorge Vieira, were awarded with 80 thousand euros to investigate key open questions at the Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE) at CERN. AWAKE uses ultra-relativistic proton bunches available at CERN to excite relativistic plasma waves that could ultimately accelerate electrons (or positrons) to 10-100 GeVs in a 10-100 meter long plasma. This project will allow investigating some of the crucial questions to attain this goal from technological, experimental, numerical and also theoretical standpoints.

Luís OS was recently elected fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc). IST has two professors that are fellows of the EurASC, Luis OS and Armando Pombeiro. Luis is the first Portuguese to be part of the Physics division and the sixth Portuguese to join the prestigious academy.

The next edition of the Les Houches plasma physics school will be co-organized by EPP researcher Thomas G and Mickael Grech (LULI, France). This school, held every two years at Les Houches, in the beautiful Chamonix Valley in the french Alps, gathers a group of renowned lecturers in plasma physics. Space, astrophysical as well as laboratory plasmas will be considered with a special emphasis on the timely topic of plasmas under extreme conditions as found e.g. in the interior of planets, in the most violent astrophysical environments, or created using extreme-light lasers.

EPP students and lecturers have participated in previous editions of this school in 2013, 2015, and 2019.