Dr. Hans G. Rinderknecht is an experimental physicist with research interests in laser-driven fusion, kinetic plasma physics, plasma nuclear physics, and relativistic laser–plasma interactions. He received a B.A. in Physics, with Honors, from Princeton University in 2008, and his Ph.D. in Plasma Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015. The title of his thesis was “Studies of non-hydrodynamic processes in ICF implosions on OMEGA and the National Ignition Facility.” From 2015 to 2018, he was a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he studied the kinetic structure of collisional plasma shocks, the magnetic structure of astrophysical collisionless shocks, and advanced nuclear diagnostic techniques for the NIF ICF program. While there, Hans organized the first Kinetic Physics in ICF workshop at LLNL in 2016, and co-organized the second Kinetic Physics in ICF workshop in Santa Fe in 2018. Hans joined the Experimental Division of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics in 2018, where he developed the knock-on deuteron imaging (KoDI) diagnostic for hot-spot and cold fuel imaging of laser-direct–drive ICF experiments on OMEGA. Hans presently leads the Ultrafast Laser-Plasma Interaction Group, with the goal of developing short-pulse laser-plasma experimental efforts at LLE.
