Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) are compact accelerators which can produce femtosecond high-energy electron beams on a much smaller scale than the conventional radiofrequency accelerators. It is attributed to their high acceleration gradient which is about 3 orders of magnitude larger than the traditional ones. The past decade has witnessed the major breakthroughs and progress in developing the laser wakfield accelerators. To achieve the LWFAs suitable for applications, more and more attention has been paid to optimize the LWFAs for high-quality electron beams. A single-staged LWFA does not favor generating controllable electron beams beyond 1 GeV since electron injection and acceleration are coupled and cannot be independently controlled. Staged LWFAs provide a promising route to overcome this disadvantage by decoupling injection from acceleration and thus the electron-beam quality as well as the stability can be greatly improved. This paper provides an overview of the physical conceptions of the LWFA, as well as the major breakthroughs and progress in developing LWFAs from single-stage to two-stage LWFAs.

Internal solvation of protein was studied by site-directed mutagenesis, with which an intrinsically fluorescent probe, tryptophan, is inserted into the desired position inside a protein molecule for ultrafast spectroscopic study. Here we review this unique method for protein dynamics research. We first introduce the frontiers of protein solvation, site-directed mutagenesis, protein stability and characteristics, and the spectroscopic methods. Then we present time-resolved spectroscopic dynamics of solvation dynamics inside cavities of active sites. The studies are carried out on a globular protein, staphylococcal nuclease. The solvation at sites inside the protein molecule's cavities clearly reveals characteristics of the local environment. These solvation behaviors are directly correlated to enzyme activity.

With the advent of ultrashort high intensity laser pulses, laser absorption during the laser-solid interactions has received significant attention over the last two decades since it is related to a variety of applications of high intensity lasers, including the hot electron production for fast ignition of fusion targets, table-top bright X-ray and gamma-ray sources, ion acceleration, compact neutron sources, and generally the creation of high energy density matters. Normally, some absorption mechanisms found for nanosecond long laser pulses also appear for ultrashort laser pulses. The peculiar aspects with ultrashort laser pulses are that their absorption depends significantly on the preplasma condition and the initial target structures. Meanwhile, relativistic nonlinearity and ponderomotive force associated with the laser pulses lead to new mechanisms or phenomena, which are usually not found with nanosecond long pulses. In this paper, we present an overview of the recent progress on the major absorption mechanisms in intense laser-solid interactions, where emphasis is paid to our related theory and simulation studies.

The remarkable experimental progress in the studies of collisionless shockwave (CS) in laboratories employing high-power lasers is briefly reviewed. The results show that CS can be generated in laser-produced plasmas due to the micro-turbulence associated with instabilities. CS is one of the most important astronomical phenomena. It has been found in supernova remnants (SNRs), Sun-Earth space, etc. This paper focuses on CS in ways relevant to SNRs. Laboratory astrophysics (LA), a new interdisciplinary frontier of astrophysics, plasma and laser physics, has developed rapidly in recent years. As an accessory to the astronomical observation, LA experimenters can closely study some astronomical events scaled-down to controllable phenomena.

Recent progress in filament-induced atmospheric sensing is reviewed. Self-guided propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in air induces laser filamentation. All molecules in the path of a filament can be dissociated into highly excited fragments, resulting in emission of characteristic fluorescence spectra. The fluorescence spectra provide information about the various molecules in the filaments. By using a filament-induced “fingerprinting” fluorescence technique, molecules in the atmosphere can be identified.

An analytic equation interpreting the intensity of ultrasound-modulated scattering light is derived, based on diffusion theory and previous explanations of the intensity modulation mechanism. Furthermore, an experiment of ultrasonic modulation of incoherent light in a scattering medium is developed. This analytical model agrees well with experimental results, which confirms the validity of the proposed intensity modulation mechanism. The model supplements the existing research on the ultrasonic modulation mechanism of scattering light.

An original idea is reviewed. When a molecule is pumped into a super-excited state, one of its decay channels is neutral dissociation. One or more of the neutral fragments will fluoresce. Hence, if a lower state of such fluorescing fragments was populated through other channels but with a lower probability, population inversion of the fluorescing fragments would be naturally realized. This idea seems to be validated, so far, by comparing published work on three hydrocarbon molecules, CH₄, C₂H₂, C₂H₄, and water vapor, H₂O. After super-excitation in a femtosecond laser filament in air mixed with these molecules, the fluorescence from the CH or OH fragments exhibits population inversion, i.e., amplified spontaneous emission was observed in the backscattering direction of the filament.