Laboratory measurements of 0.7 GG magnetic fields generated during high-intensity laser interactions with dense plasmas

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2004 Aug;70(2 Pt 2):026401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.70.026401. Epub 2004 Aug 4.

Abstract

We report measurements of ultrahigh magnetic fields produced during intense ( approximately 10(20) Wcm(-2) micro m(2) ) laser interaction experiments with solids. We show that polarization measurements of high-order vuv laser harmonics generated during the interaction (up to the 15th order) suggest the existence of magnetic field strengths of 0.7+/-0.1 GG in the overdense plasma. Measurements using higher order harmonics indicate that denser regions of the plasma can be probed. This technique may be useful for measurements of multi- GG level magnetic fields which are predicted to occur at even higher intensities.