title: Mapping transient electric fields with picosecond electron bunches.
abstract: Transient electric fields, which are an important but hardly explored parameter of laser plasmas, can now be diagnosed experimentally with combined ultrafast temporal resolution and field sensitivity, using femtosecond to picosecond electron or proton pulses as probes. However, poor spatial resolution poses great challenges to simultaneously recording both the global and local field features. Here, we present a direct 3D measurement of a transient electric field by time-resolved electron schlieren radiography with simultaneous 80-μm spatial and 3.7-ps temporal resolutions, analyzed using an Abel inversion algorithm. The electric field here is built up at the front of an aluminum foil irradiated with a femtosecond laser pulse at 1.9 × 10(12) W/cm(2), where electrons are emitted at a speed of 4 × 10(6) m/s, resulting in a unique "peak-valley" transient electric field map with the field strength up to 10(5) V/m. Furthermore, time-resolved schlieren radiography with charged particle pulses should enable the mapping of various fast-evolving field structures including those found in plasma-based particle accelerators.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China;
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China;
authors.forename: Runze
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China;
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China;
authors.forename: Pengfei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; liuf001@sjtu.edu.cn jzhang1@sjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Physics Department and National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310;
authors.forename: Jianming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; The Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Zhengming
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; liuf001@sjtu.edu.cn jzhang1@sjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: electron radiography; laser plasma; spatial resolution; temporal resolution; transient electric field