Probing of ultra-high contrast laser-plasma interaction from condensed hydrogen jet

To advance the development of laser proton accelerators for highly demanding applications like cancer treatment a stable source of energetic particles at high repetition rates is required.
During our last experimental campaign at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf we therefore employed a pure condensed hydrogen jet as a renewable target for the 100TW Draco laser. Draco is a ultra-high power Ti:Sa laser system which delivers pulses of 30fs and 3J on target at 800nm with a repetition rate of 10Hz. A recollimating single plasma mirror results in an improved temporal contrast represented by an ASE level of 10-13.
The expanding jet was monitored on-shot with a separate phase locked diode-pumped ps-laser at a wavelength of 515 nm. By that over-exposure of the CCD resulting from strong plasma self-emission which had been observed in earlier experiments to be at the harmonics of the pump laser, could be avoided. The probe beam was split in two parts oriented perpendicular and parallel with respect to the pump laser axis in order to precisely determine the jet position and its density profile.