Ultrafast short-pulse laser target heating

Interaction of an intense, short-pulse laser (> 10^19 W/cm^2) with solids generates a significant number of energetic electrons predominantly by the laser electric fields. The MeV energy electrons play an central role in applications such as hard x-ray generation, charged particle acceleration and heating of solid and dense matter. Characterization and optimization of the fast electrons are important to meet the goal of each application, but generation of fast electrons is only broadly understood. Characterization of the fast electrons is the first step to understand the physics of short-pulse laser matter interaction. In particular, we focus on a study of short-pulse laser isochoric heating of solid density and compressed matter. Recently, we carry out experiments on X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFEL) such as LCLS at SLAC and SACLA in Japan.