Design and commissioning of the PRIOR-II "proton microscope for FAIR".

A new high energy proton radiography facility PRIOR-II (Proton Microscope for FAIR) has been designed, constructed, and successfully commissioned at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (Darmstadt, Germany) pushing the technical boundaries of charged particle radiography with normal conducting magnets to the limits. The setup is foreseen to become a new and powerful user facility for carrying out fundamental science experiments in the fields of plasma and shock wave physics, material science, and medical physics. It will help address several unsolved scientific challenges, which require high-speed and precise non-invasive diagnostic methods capable of probing matter with up to 100 g/cm2 areal density.

Reconstruction of Z-pinch emission spectra in the wavelength range of less than 10 Å using a crystal X-ray spectrograph.

This work is devoted to the reconstruction of Z-pinch plasma emission spectra in the wavelength range of less than 10 Å recorded by using a crystal x-ray spectrograph at the Angara 5-1 mega-ampere facility. The spectrograph JA-1 used in experiments has a cylindrical mica crystal with dimensions of 50 × 40 mm2 and radius of curvature of 100 mm. Registration of spectra is performed on the photographic film UF-4 with dimensions of 30 × 10 mm2.

Single-pass method for reconstruction of extreme UV spectra.

This work is devoted to the development of a method for the reconstruction of plasma extreme UV (EUV) spectra recorded by a three frame grazing incidence spectrograph (GIS-3D). The spectrograph provides registration of radiation reflected from the diffraction grating (DG) on a three-frame detector based on a microchannel plate with a scintillator screen and registration on a CCD camera, with an exposure time of one frame of ∼1.5 ns.

Monitoring of the heavy-ion beam distribution using poly- and monochromatic x-ray fluorescence imaging.

In this work, the first proof of the principal of an in situ diagnostics of the heavy-ion beam intensity distribution in irradiation of solid targets is proposed. In this scheme, x-ray fluorescence that occurs in the interaction of heavy-ions with target atoms is used for imaging purposes. The x-ray conversion to optical radiation and a transport-system was developed, and its first test was performed in experiments at the Universal Linear Accelerator in Darmstadt, Germany.

Forward-looking insights in laser-generated ultra-intense γ-ray and neutron sources for nuclear application and science.

Ultra-intense MeV photon and neutron beams are indispensable tools in many research fields such as nuclear, atomic and material science as well as in medical and biophysical applications. For applications in laboratory nuclear astrophysics, neutron fluxes in excess of 10 n/(cm s) are required. Such ultra-high fluxes are unattainable with existing conventional reactor- and accelerator-based facilities.