Memorial
The conference is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Italian physicist,
one of the founders of the conference
Аngelo Caruso
3/11/1936 – 21/10/2015
A. Caruso is one of the founders of a new scientific research field - the interaction of laser radiation with matter, which since 50 years is the subject of the ECLIM Conference (European conference on laser interaction with matter). A. Caruso is rightly considered among the fathers of this conference. Namely, he organized in 1966 the first conference ECLIM in Frascati (Italy), and then three more times he was the chairman of the organizing committee of the conference in Rome (1985) in the Formia (1998) and again in Rome (2004).
Practically all scientific activity of A. Caruso was held at the Institute, which now bears the name of the ENEA-Frascati, and was devoted to the physics of pulsed high-temperature plasmas. From 1961 to 1964 the scientific interests of A. Caruso were related to the high-temperature plasma of Z-pinches. Later the main direction of his scientific activity became the physics of inertial confinement fusion. In the mid ‘60s of the last century, he carried out the pioneering researches on theory of laser-driven ablation of solids irradiated by high-power laser radiation, where the similarity relations for the dependence of ablation pressure on the intensity, wavelength and pulse duration of laser pulse have been established. During a hot discussion on the absorption of laser radiation irradiating a solid target, A. Caruso has substantiated the possibility of a high absorption efficiency of a nanosecond laser pulse due to the inverse bremsstrahlung process in that part of laser-produced plasma where the density becomes smaller than the critical plasma density as a result of thermal expansion. At the same time on the initiative of A. Caruso the experiments on laser radiation with matter have begun in ENEA. In 1964-1968 such experiments were carried out with the use of nanosecond laser pulses. The high efficiency of intense laser radiation absorption and the scaling for ablation pressure of laser-produced plasma have been confirmed. In the late ‘60s A. Caruso published the papers where the theoretical foundations of laser-driven shock wave and flat target acceleration were presented. In 1968-1970 laser matter interaction experiments were performed using a picosecond laser pulse (10 ps). In the experiments on LiD-ice irradiation the thermonuclear neutron yield was recorded. In addition, the experiments were performed by irradiation of submicron thin foils. The results of these experiments, on the one hand, demonstrated a fast heating of the material in the «exploding pusher» regime, which later became one of the most fruitful methods of creation and study of pulsed plasma with a thermonuclear temperature as well as of generation of thermonuclear neutrons. On the other hand, a method was proposed and demonstrated for generating a stream of high-energy ions as a result of laser-driven heating of a limited (small) mass of matter, which is now widely used already using petawatt lasers.
In 1974, A. Caruso has prepared a program of research on inertial confinement fusion in the ENEA-Frascati, and then led these investigations. As part of this program the three-channel laser ABC with the total energy of 200 J and the duration of about 3 ns was built . The results of experiments with the ABC facility on laser-driven shock wave and thin foil acceleration, laser-produced X-ray emission, laser interaction with a porous materials, and on other directions contributed significantly to the development of laser fusion research, not only in Italy but throughout the world.
A. Caruso made a great contribution to the development of the fast ignition of inertial fusion targets. He proposed the original approaches to the problem of fast heating of preliminary compressed targets due to the impact of laser-accelerated projectile and X-ray pulse.
Angelo Caruso passed away in October 21, 2015, but he left us the bright results of his researches, the memory of himself as a highest intellectual person, and … the conference. |
