Research summary
Laser-based technologies have all kinds of purposes—from performing surgeries to enabling farmers to test soil. Dr. Amina Hussein is tapping into the power of these technologies to make plasma and diagnose this plasma in order to get information about complex materials.
As Canada Research Chair in Laser-Plasmas, she and her research team are applying high-repetition rate, femtosecond laser systems to develop the first fully-automated source of high-stability energetic electrons and X-ray bursts that are driven by laser-matter interactions. Employing a high-repetition rate will enable the use of machine learning techniques by providing large experimental data sets that will guide the development of simplified models for complex laser-matter interactions. Ultimately, the laser-driven electrons and X-ray bursts Hussein and her team develop will have applications in fields such as materials science, additive manufacturing and precision agriculture.