Virtual Laboratory Environment for High-Voltage Radiation Sources

The Computational Virtual Laboratory (VLAB) is a computer-based laboratory for performing experiments with high-voltage, high-current electron-driven sources of electromagnetic radiation. The VLAB is based on the XOOPIC object-oriented particle-in-cell framework. The XOOPIC code was developed by a team led by Dr. Verboncoeur in the Plasma Theory and Simulation Group at University of California at Berkeley starting in 1992. XOOPIC currently contains models for electrostatic and electromagnetic models in Cartesian and axisymmetric coordinates, with a Monte Carlo model for collisions. It can model the relativistic regime, with multiple species, arbitrary placement of boundaries, and user-extensible diagnostics. Applications include low temperature plasma discharges for materials processing and lighting, high power microwave devices, basic plasma physics, space plasmas, high energy accelerators, laser-plasma interactions, and beam optics. For VLAB, XOOPIC will be extended with models for advanced physics addressing the high-voltage radiation source regime, as well as their implementation. The applications range from fundamental physics in the high-voltage, high-current environments, to high power microwave sources for directed energy weapons, to nuclear effects simulation, to novel imaging concepts for medical or materials industries.