Related papers: Exawatt-Zettawatt Pulse Generation and Application…
Laser wakefield accelerators rely on relativistically moving micron-sized plasma cavities that provide extremely high electric field >100GV/m. Here, we demonstrate transverse shaping of the plasma cavity to produce controlled sub-GeV…
This dissertation explores the interaction between high-intensity lasers and plasmas to accelerate electrons and produce radiation via experimental and computational efforts. The laser pulses used in this dissertation have ultrashort…
We propose a novel scheme called advanced dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA) that employs two kinds of nonlinear crystals (BiB$_3$O$_6$ and MgO-doped lithium niobate) to overcome the bottleneck of pulse energy…
We demonstrate a new highly tunable technique for generating meter-scale low density plasma waveguides. Such guides can enable electron acceleration to tens of GeV in a single stage. Plasma waveguides are imprinted in hydrogen gas by…
Plasmas may be used as gain media for amplifying intense lasers, and external magnetic fields may be applied to improve the performance. For mid-infrared lasers, the requisite magnetic field is on megagauss scale, which can already be…
We propose a novel method for changing the length of laser wakefield electron acceleration in a gas jet by a cylindrical blast wave created by a perpendicularly focused nanosecond laser pulse. The shock front destroys the wake thus stopping…
Plasma waves generated in the wake of intense, relativistic laser or particle beams can accelerate electron bunches to giga-electronvolt (GeV) energies in centimetre-scale distances. This allows the realization of compact accelerators…
We proposed a novel method, using an asymmetric four grating compressor (AFGC) to improve the spatial uniformity of laser beams, to suppress the small-scale self-focusing (SSSF) during the post-compression of ultrahigh peak power lasers.…
Although existing technology cannot yet directly produce fields at the Schwinger level, experimental facilities can already explore strong-field QED phenomena by taking advantage of the Lorentz boost of energetic electron beams. Recent…
Attosecond pulses from free-electron lasers have opened the doors to atomic site-specific pumping and probing of quantum systems. Key to their success has been electron beam shaping techniques enabling the generation of sub-femtosecond…
A scheme of laser wakefield acceleration, when a relatively rare and long bunch of non-relativistic or weakly-relativistic electrons is initially in front of the laser pulse, is suggested and considered. The motion of test electrons is…
The excitation of wakefields by a triangular temporal profile laser pulse with an abrupt fall in a step density profile plasma channel is investigated analytically and an exact solution is obtained. The excitation is more efficient for…
We propose a laser-controlled plasma shutter technique to generate sharp laser pulses using a process analogous to electromagnetically-induced transparency in atoms. The shutter is controlled by a laser with moderately strong intensity,…
One of the most serious bottleneck on achieving kilojoule-level high-energy petawatt (PW) to hundreds-petawatt (100PW) lasers with ps to fs pulse duration is the requirement of as large as meter-sized gratings in the compressor so as to…
Laser-plasma acceleration (LPA) is a compact technique to accelerate electron bunches to highly relativistic energies, making it a promising candidate to power radiation sources for industrial or medical applications. We report on the…
We characterize the plasma flows generated during the ablation stage of an over-massed exploding planar wire array, fielded on the COBRA pulsed-power facility (1 MA peak current, 250 ns rise time). The planar wire array is designed to…
Cold atmospheric pressure plasmas are crucial for applications in medicine, agriculture, and material processing, where their interaction with ambient air generates reactive oxygen and nitrogen species for disinfection and treatment…
One of the most robust methods, demonstrated up to date, of accelerating electron beams by laser-plasma sources is the utilization of plasma channels generated by the capillary discharges. These channels, i.e., plasma columns with a minimum…
Triggering vacuum breakdown at the upcoming laser facilities can provide rapid electron-positron pair production for studies in laboratory astrophysics and fundamental physics. However, the density of the emerging plasma should seemingly…
For production of low temperature plasmas with low collisionality, 2.45GHz microwave power up to 20kW is injected perpendicularly to the toroidal field at very low toroidal field Bt