Generation of axially modulated plasma waveguides using a spatial light modulator

Abstract

We demonstrate the generation of axially modulated plasma waveguides using spatially patterned high-energy laser pulses. A spatial light modulator (SLM) imposes transverse phase front modulations on a low-energy (10 mJ) laser pulse which is interferometrically combined with a high-energy (130-450 mJ) pulse, sculpting its intensity profile. This enables dynamic and programmable shaping of the laser profile limited only by the resolution of the SLM and the intensity ratio of the two pulses. The plasma density profile formed by focusing the patterned pulse with an axicon lens is likewise dynamic and programmable. Centimeter-scale, axially modulated plasmas of varying shape and periodicity are demonstrated.

High-power tunable laser driven THz generation in corrugated plasma waveguides

“…Figures 2a and 2b are false color images of two different density profiles, based on parameters given in the caption. Both profiles are similar to those realized experimentally [20,21]. The channel in Fig.…”

“…In this paper we report theoretical, numerical and simulation results of ponderomotively driven THz generation by laser pulses propagating through corrugated plasma waveguides. Such waveguides have already been realized in the laboratory [20,21]. The experimental set up is shown in Fig.…”

“…As an example, a fixed drive pulse (0.55 J) with a spot size of 15 µm and duration of 15 f s produces 37.8 mJ of THz radiation in a 1.5 cm corrugated plasma waveguide with an on axis average density of 1.4 × 10 18 cm −3 . [20,21]. (b) Snapshot of an experimentally generated modulated plasma channel (only 3 periods of many are shown).…”

Generation of a Bessel beam in FDTD using a cylindrical antenna

“…In comparison with the already short Bessel-Gauss beam that was generated, the computational effort has been decreased by a factor 64. Despite restricted to study longitudinally periodic objects or longitudinally periodic particle distributions, we believe that our work will find applications in the field of laser-particle scattering [37], particle trapping, nonlinear plasmonics [38] and specifically in laser-particle acceleration and laser-plasma interaction [6,8,13,19,20].…”

“…Bessel beams are mainly utilized as optical traps [2][3][4], for optical manipulation [5], optical acceleration [6][7][8], light-sheet microscopy [9,10], nonlinear optics, ultrashort pulse filamentation [11][12][13], and laser-material processing [14][15][16][17][18]. Our main interest here is that Bessel beams can be used to generate long plasma rods with quasi-uniform density [19,20].…”