Laser wakefield acceleration with mid-IR laser pulses

Woodbury, Daniel; Feder, Linus; Shumakova, Valentina; Gollner, Claudia; Schwartz, R.; Miao, Bo; Salehi, Fatholah; Korolov, Anastasia; Pugžlys, Audrius; Baltuška, Andrius; Milchberg, H. M.

doi:10.1364/ol.43.001131

Cited by 65 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For the wavelength scaling of laser-based acceleration of electrons to maximum energy by LWFA (laser wake field acceleration) the situation is more complicated, since many parameters have to be considered [257] . Nevertheless it was shown that the larger plasma structures are capable of accelerating bunches of higher charges [258] . Another application of high laser intensities is the generation of high harmonics (HHG), where the high-energy cutoff also scales with I λ 2 , with the macroscopic scaling ω ∼ λ 1.6 -λ 1.7 .…”

Section: The Development Of Mid-infrared Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Petawatt and exawatt class lasers worldwide

Danson

Haefner

Bromage

et al. 2019

High Pow Laser Sci Eng

785

406

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the 2015 review paper ‘Petawatt Class Lasers Worldwide’ a comprehensive overview of the current status of high-power facilities of ${>}200~\text{TW}$ was presented. This was largely based on facility specifications, with some description of their uses, for instance in fundamental ultra-high-intensity interactions, secondary source generation, and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). With the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to Professors Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou for the development of the technique of chirped pulse amplification (CPA), which made these lasers possible, we celebrate by providing a comprehensive update of the current status of ultra-high-power lasers and demonstrate how the technology has developed. We are now in the era of multi-petawatt facilities coming online, with 100 PW lasers being proposed and even under construction. In addition to this there is a pull towards development of industrial and multi-disciplinary applications, which demands much higher repetition rates, delivering high-average powers with higher efficiencies and the use of alternative wavelengths: mid-IR facilities. So apart from a comprehensive update of the current global status, we want to look at what technologies are to be deployed to get to these new regimes, and some of the critical issues facing their development.

show abstract

Section: The Development Of Mid-infrared Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Petawatt and exawatt class lasers worldwide

Danson

Haefner

Bromage

et al. 2019

High Pow Laser Sci Eng

785

406

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such performances have been reached in laser-solid experiments [16,17].Besides, mid-and far-infrared light sources supplying TW peak powers are today available. Femtosecond laser facilities with 3.9 µm central wavelength opened the way to multi-octave supercontinuum generation [18] and can accelerate electrons to 12 MeV energy in gas jets [19]. CO 2 lasers (λ 0 = 10.6 µm) are also operational in the ps range [20] and they should soon provide revolutionary tools unveiling new regimes in particle acceleration and future colliders [21].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2(f)] promote particle injection. Using longer laser wavelengths also favors selffocusing for peak powers above critical, P > P c = 17(λ p /λ 0 ) 2 [GW], and increases the charge of the accelerated electron bunch [19]. Figure 4(a) shows the maximum normalized laser electric field along the propagation axis for the three studied wavelengths.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

THz Generation from Relativistic Plasmas Driven by Near- to Far-Infrared Laser Pulses

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Terahertz pulse generation by ultra-intense two-color laser fields ionizing gases with near-to farinfrared carrier wavelength is studied from particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. For long wavelength (10.6 µm) promoting a large ratio of electron density over critical, photoionization is shown to catastrophically enhance the plasma wakefield, causing a net downshift in the optical spectrum and exciting THz fields with tens of GV/m amplitude in the laser direction. This emission is accompanied by coherent transition radiation (CTR) of comparable amplitude due to wakefield-driven electron acceleration. We analytically evaluate the fraction of CTR energy up to 30 % of the total radiated emission including the particle self-field and numerically calibrate the efficiency of the matched blowout regime for electron densities varied over three orders of magnitude. PACS numbers: 52.25.Os,42.65.Re,52.38.Hb The ability of terahertz (THz) waves to probe matter is attracting interest for lots of applications reviewed, e.g., in [1]. Recently, novel challenges such as compact THz electron accelerators [2][3][4] or THz-triggered chemistry [5] raised the need of mJ THz pulses with high field strength > GV/m. Optical rectification in organic crystals [6] or using tilted-pulse-front pumping [7] can achieve percent conversion efficiency and sub-mJ THz energies with few 0.1 GV/m field strengths. These solid-based technologies, however, remain limited by damage thresholds. In contrast, gas plasmas created by intense, two-color laser pulses may supply suitable emitters free of any damage [8]. Electrons are tunnel-ionized by the asymmetric light field usually composed of a near-IR fundamental wavelength (800 nm) and its second harmonic (400 nm). Their "photocurrent" polarized in the laser direction generates a broadband photocurrent-induced radiation (PIR) in the THz range [9]. Nevertheless, two-color setups using moderate intensities ∼ 10 14 W/cm 2 only achieve conversion efficiencies < 10 −3 and µJ energies [10,11].In the relativistic regime, however, when the normalized vector potential a 0 ≡ 8.5×10 −10 I 1/2 0 [W/cm 2 ]λ 0 [µm] is larger than unity (I 0 is the intensity and λ 0 denotes the laser wavelength), plasma waves trigger a strong longitudinal field exploited for laser-wakefield acceleration (LWFA) [12]. Accelerated electrons crossing the plasmavacuum interface can then emit coherent transition radiation (CTR) operating in the THz band. Leemans et al. [13,14] reported THz energy of 3-5 nJ per pulse measured from a dense gas jet of helium. Theoretical estimates assuming a Boltzmann distribution of 4.6 MeV confirmed this energy yield and anticipated the possibility to provide few 100 µJ energies by increasing the electron bunch to tens of MeV and/or the plasma diameter to mm scales. Record values were later achieved in numerical simulations from which CTR took over PIR by delivering conversion efficiencies > 5 × 10 −3 and mJ THz pulse energies [15]. Such performances have been reached in laser-solid experiments [16,17].Besides...

show abstract

“…The development of mid-infrared (IR) ultrafast pulsed lasers of high intensity, short pulse duration and tunable carrier wavelength at 2.0-5.0 µm is of great interest for a diverse range of applications from high harmonic generation [1,2] and laser wakefield acceleration [3,4] to spectroscopic investigation [5,6] . Owing to the lack of proper gain media, nonlinear down-conversion is a common method to generate the intensive mid-IR pulsed laser, which is inaccessible by a mode-locked laser.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient idler broadening via oppositely dual-chirped difference frequency generation

Zhong

et al. 2020

High Pow Laser Sci Eng

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dual-chirped difference frequency generation (DFG) is an advantageous technique for generating the broadband mid-infrared (IR) idler wave, which is inaccessible by a population-inversion-based laser system. In principle, the generated idler wave may even suffer a spectrum broadening compared with the driving pulsed lasers if the pump and signal waves are oppositely chirped. However, broadband phase-matching is always the determining factor for the resulting efficiency and the bandwidth of the generated idler wave. In this study, specific to an oppositely dual-chirped DFG scheme, we derive the precondition to realize broadband frequency conversion, wherein a negative $(1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{p}-1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{i})/(1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{s}-1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{i})$ , in terms of the correlation coefficient of the group velocity ( $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ ), is necessary. However, most birefringence bulk crystals can only provide the required material dispersions in limited spectral regions. We show that the periodically poled lithium niobate crystal that satisfies an inactive Type-II (eo-o) quasi-phase-matching condition has a stable negative $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ and exerts the expected broadband gain characteristic across an ultra-broad idler spectral region $(1.7{-}4.0~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m})$ . Finally, we propose and numerically verify a promising DFG configuration to construct a tunable mid-IR spectrum broader based on the broadband phase-matched oppositely dual-chirped DFG scheme.

show abstract

Laser wakefield acceleration with mid-IR laser pulses

Cited by 65 publications

References 22 publications

Petawatt and exawatt class lasers worldwide

Petawatt and exawatt class lasers worldwide

THz Generation from Relativistic Plasmas Driven by Near- to Far-Infrared Laser Pulses

Efficient idler broadening via oppositely dual-chirped difference frequency generation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About