Exploring the world of ultra-intense laser plasma interactions

Ultra-intense laser interactions with matter give us a route to produce some of the most extreme conditions on earth. When these lasers are focused onto solid material, the electric fields associated with the laser are so strong that the atoms in the material become readily ionised to create plasma. These intense lasers only penetrate a short distance into the material that they are striking, limiting the amount of energy that can be readily absorbed. Mega-Amp currents of fast electrons are driven into the target and these electrons transport energy deeper into the material. The fast electrons are the driver of much of the downstream physics and so the study of these electrons is of great interest. The potential impact of this work is broad and exciting from high-gain Inertial Confinement Fusion approaches to developing bright, ultra-short sources of radiation for non-destructive testing and medicine.

Bio
Dr Kate Lancaster is a senior lecturer based at the York Plasma Institute, part of the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology at the University of York. She received her PhD in 2005 in Advanced Fast Ignition Studies from Imperial College whilst based in Central Laser Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. A post-doctoral position was followed by a permanent research position at the Central Laser Facility, before coming to the York Plasma Institute in 2012.

Her research expertise is in ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions and is based around understanding the absorption of those lasers and the subsequent transport of the energy. She specifically is interested in the role the electrons play in this and how we can manipulate and control them, which is relevant for alternative laser driven fusion schemes, laser driven sources, and physics at the intensity frontier.

She is the chair of the IOP plasma physics group, a member of the academic council for FuseNET, and reviews experimental proposals for a number of international laser facilities. Until October this year she was the chair of the Physical Sciences and Engineering facility advisory panel for STFC.

Kate has been very active in the communication of science for many years. She has spoken to tens of thousands of people at many events, festivals, and schools and has appeared as an expert on both television and radio, mainly speaking about lasers, plasmas, and fusion. She gave a prestigious Friday Evening Discourse at The Royal Institution in 2015 on “The Extreme World of Ultra Intense Lasers”, which has subsequently received over 700,000 views on YouTube. Recently Kate was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 show “in our time” talking about plasma. This show has a listenership of ~2.5 million with a further ~2 million podcast downloads.