Research activities
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The core expertise and interests of the EUV Plasma Processes group are in the physics of EUV-light-generating laser-produced plasma. The group employs a tin microdroplet generator to provide targets for ARCNL’s high-energy pulsed solid-state laser systems which generate a hot and very dense plasma from them. The group studies this plasma at the fundamental level: that of electrons, ions, atoms, and molecules. Active and passive spectroscopic tools covering optical, deep-ultraviolet, and EUV domains, probe plasma temperature and density, its tin charge state distribution, effects of self-absorption, and the line- and continuum emission of the EUV light in all its aspects. Plasma pressure, and its impact, is sensitively studied by probing the propulsion and fluid-dynamic deformation of the laser-targeted microdroplet, from the incompressible to compressible regimes, using “high-speed” shadowgraphy systems. Detailed studies of the formation and ejection of fast ionic and neutral particulates by the plasma provides a detailed look into the plasma, and enables the study of the interaction of the plasma with its direct environment.
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Key atomic plasma processes are probed in setups dedicated to provide insights into the plasma’s microscopic physics origins at the single particle level. The group has a branch at the Zernike Institute of Advanced Materials at the University of Groningen where an electron-cyclotron ion source provides multiply charged tin ions for charge-state-resolved studies of ion-molecule and ion-surface collisions at the quantum level. Fundamental electron-ion interactions and tin’s atomic properties are investigated in a larger collaboration including the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg.