Related papers: Subcycle engineering of laser filamentation in gas…
Precise control of the electron phase accumulated during its sub-cycle motion within intense laser fields is essential in strong-field physics, yet remains mostly indirect and complicated so far. In this Letter, we develop a novel approach…
High-harmonic generation is one of the most extreme nonlinear-optical processes observed to date. By focusing an intense laser pulse into a gas, the light-atom interaction that occurs during the process of ionising the atoms results in the…
We present measurements of high-order harmonics and relativistic electrons emitted into the vacuum from a plasma mirror driven by temporally-shaped ultra-intense laser waveforms, produced by collinearly combining the main laser field with…
Ultrafast processes in matter can be captured and even controlled by using sequences of few-cycle optical pulses, which need to be well characterized, both in amplitude and phase. The same degree of control has not yet been achieved for…
The present work reports on the generation of short-pulse coherent extreme ultraviolet radiation of controlled polarization. The proposed strategy is based on high-order harmonics generated in pre-aligned molecules. Field-free molecular…
Singly ionized nitrogen molecules in ambient air pumped by near-infrared femtosecond laser give rise to superradiant emission. Here we demonstrate coherent control of this superradiance by injecting a pair of resonant seeding pulses inside…
In this Letter, it is experimentally and theoretically shown that weak odd harmonics generated during the propagation of an infrared ultrashort ultra-intense pulse unexpectedly modify the nonlinear properties of the medium and lead to a…
Laser filamentation in transparent material has a wide range of applications, from three dimensional manufacturing to biological technologies. Various experimental results showed that femtosecond laser pulse filamentation in fused silica…
Broadband laser sources based on supercontinuum generation by femtosecond laser filamentation have enabled applications from stand-off sensing and spectroscopy to the generation and self-compression of high-energy few-cycle pulses.…
Coherent control of a system involves steering an interaction to a final coherent state by controlling the phase of an applied field. Plasmas support coherent wave structures that can be generated by intense laser fields. Here, we…
Experimental results, supported by precise modelling, demonstrate optimisation of a plasma-based injector with intermediate laser pulse energy ($<1$ J), corresponding to a normalised vector potential $a_0 = 2.15$, using ionisation injection…
The use of strong-field (i.e. intensities in excess of 10^13 Wcm-2) few-cycle ultrafast (durations of 10 femtoseconds or less) laser pulses to create, manipulate and image vibrational wavepackets is investigated. Quasi-classical modelling…
The propagation of intense picosecond laser pulses in air in the presence of strong nonlinear self-action effects and air ionization is investigated experimentally and numerically. The model used for numerical analysis is based on the…
Strong-field phenomena driven by an intense infrared (IR) laser depend on during what part of the field cycle they are initiated. By changing the sub-cycle character of the laser electric field it is possible to control such phenomena. For…
We experimentally demonstrate optical control of filamentation that occurs during propagation of intense, ultrashort laser pulses through crystals like barium fluoride and sapphire. Control is exercised by rotating the plane of polarization…
High-order harmonic generation via single-slit diffraction of relativistic laser pulses is investigated. Using fully kinetic 2D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations, we show that interesting optical phenomena emerge, including the generation…
Sources of intense, ultra-short electromagnetic pulses enable applications such as attosecond pulse generation, control of electron motion in solids and the observation of reaction dynamics at the electronic level. For such applications…
We show that, nonlinear optical processes of nanoparticles can be controlled by the presence of interactions with a molecule or a quantum dot. By choosing the appropriate level spacing for the quantum emitter, one can either suppress or…
Self-guided femtosecond laser pulses propagating in low-pressure gas can generate plasma filaments, establishing a new framework for plasma wakefield acceleration. Unlike conventional schemes relying on mechanically confined or preformed…
Genetic algorithms, as implemented in optimal control strategies, are currently successfully exploited in a wide range of problems in molecular physics. In this context, laser control of molecular alignment and orientation remains a very…