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Welcome to the WIS Plasma Laboratory!

In the Plasma Laboratory, we study processes in plasmas subjected to high energy deposition. We examine the interaction of non-equilibrium plasmas with strong electric and magnetic fields, the propagation of ionization fronts, the production of fast particle beams, generation of magnetic shocks, development of collective fluctuating fields, and plasma-surface interactions. Implication of the development of plasma switches, intense x-ray sources, generation of electron and ion beams, and industrial applications based on plasma-surface interaction are studied. The use of the hot and dense plasmas for x-ray lasers and the use of intense x-ray sources for high-resolution microscopy of living biological cells are considered as well.

The diagnostic methods are based on fast high-resolution plasma spectroscopy of spontaneous emission in the region from visible to x-rays and spectroscopy of laser absorption and laser-stimulated emission. Theoretical analysis of the experimental data is based on detailed modeling of atomic physics processes that govern the atomic/ionic spectral line broadening, atomic level splitting under electric and magnetic fields, field ionization, multiple ionization and time-dependent collisional-radiative calculations. Magnetohydrodynamics simulations are used to account for the non-equilibrium kinetic and transport processes in the plasmas. The research in the laboratory is relevant to applications of various plasma systems and analysis of astrophysical data.

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