Simultaneous polarization transformation and amplification of multi-petawatt laser pulses in magnetized plasmas

Abstract

1With increasing laser peak power, the generation and manipulation of high-power laser pulses becomes a growing challenge for conventional solid-state optics due to their limited damage threshold. As a result, plasma-based optical components which can sustain extremely high fields are attracting increasing interest. Here, we propose a type of plasma waveplate based on magneto-optical birefringence under a transverse magnetic field, which can work under extremely high laser power. Importantly, this waveplate can simultaneously alter the polarization state and boost the peak laser power. It is demonstrated numerically that an initially linearly polarized laser pulse with 5 petawatt peak power can be converted into a circularly polarized pulse with a peak power higher than 10 petawatts by such a waveplate with a centimeter-scale diameter. The energy conversion efficiency of the polarization transformation is about 98%. The necessary waveplate thickness is shown to scale inversely with plasma electron density n e and the square of magnetic field B 0 , and it is about 1 cm for n e = 3 × 10 20 cm −3 and B 0 = 100 T. The proposed plasma waveplate and other plasma-based optical components can play a critical role for the effective utilization of multi-petawatt laser systems.

Growth, saturation, and collapse of laser-driven plasma density gratings

“…Consequently, plasma-based optical components for the manipulation of ultra-high-power laser pulses can be made more compact than their conventional solid-state optical components. As a result, plasma-based optics are attracting growing attention [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

“…To date, a lot of novel schemes based on plasma optics have been proposed for the manipulation or amplification of intense laser pulses. Plasma mirrors are widely used for enhancing the temporal-intensity contrast of in-tense laser pulses [5,6], Raman or Brillouin scattering in laser-plasma interactions are studied for the amplification of laser pulses [7][8][9][10], cross-beam energy transfer in plasmas is studied for tuning the implosion symmetry of inertial confinement fusion targets [11,12], and magnetized plasmas are proposed for the polarization control of ultra-high-power laser pulses [13,14] or the amplification of intense laser pulses [15]. In particular, two intersecting intense laser pulses in plasma can induce a plasma density modulation and form a periodic density structure, i.e., plasma density grating (PDG) [16].…”

Plasma modulator for high-power intense lasers

“…Plasma-based optical devices have no damage threshold. Presently, plasma optics for the manipulation of high-power laser pulses has garnered much more attention [14][15][16][17][18].…”

Growth, saturation and collapse of laser-driven plasma density gratings

“…Consequently, plasma-based optical components for the manipulation of ultra-high-power laser pulses can be made much more compact than their conventional solid-state optical components. As a result, plasma-based optics are attracting growing attention [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][19][20][21][22][23][24] .…”

“…To date, a lot of novel schemes based on plasma optics have been proposed for the manipulation or amplification of intense laser pulses. Plasma mirrors are widely used for enhancing the temporal contrast of intense laser pulses 6,7 , Raman or Brillouin scattering in laser-plasma interactions are studied for the amplification of laser pulses [8][9][10][11] , cross-beam energy transfer in plasmas is studied for tuning the implosion symmetry of inertial confinement fusion targets 12,13 , and magnetized plasmas are proposed for the polarization control of ultra-high-power laser pulses 14,15 or the amplification of intense laser pulses 16 . In particular, two intersecting intense laser pulses in plasma can induce a plasma density modulation and form a periodic density structure, i.e., a plasma density grating (PDG) 17 .…”