Related papers: Electron acceleration by relativistic surface plas…
Soft recollisions are laser-driven distant collisions of an electron with its parent ion. Such collisions may cause an energy bunching, since electrons with different initial drift momenta can acquire impacts, which exactly counterbalance…
Recent experimental and theoretical results have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons in the MeV range by focusing tightly a few-cycle laser beam in ambient air. Using Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations, this configuration…
We briefly report on the recently proposed [G. Fiore, R. Fedele, U. de Angelis, Phys. Plasmas 21 (2014), 113105], [G. Fiore, S. De Nicola, arXiv:1509.04656] electron acceleration mechanism named "slingshot effect": under suitable conditions…
The complex physics of the interaction between short pulse high intensity lasers and solids is so far hardly accessible by experiments. As a result of missing experimental capabilities to probe the complex electron dynamics and competing…
We examine a regime in which a linearly-polarized laser pulse with relativistic intensity irradiates a sub-critical plasma for much longer than the characteristic electron response time. A steady-state channel is formed in the plasma in…
Multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are used to study the generation of electrostatic shocks in plasma and the reflection of background ions to produce high-quality and high-energy ion beams. Electrostatic shocks are driven by…
We present an experimental demonstration of the efficient acceleration of electrons beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets. We employed a high-contrast, 2.5 J, 32 fs short pulse laser interacting with a 5 \mu m inner diameter, 300…
As an alternative to Compton backscattering and bremsstrahlung, the process of colliding high-energy electron beams with strong laser fields can more efficiently provide both cleaner and brighter source of photons in the multi-GeV range for…
The interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with solids is largely affected by the plasma gradient at the vacuum-solid interface, which modifies the absorption and ultimately, controls the energy distribution function of heated electrons.…
We present experimental results of vacuum laser acceleration (VLA) of electrons using radially polarized laser pulses interacting with a plasma mirror. Tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses have been proposed for electron…
The short wavelength of graphene plasmons relative to the light wavelength makes them attractive for applications in optoelectronics and sensing. However, this property limits their coupling to external light and our ability to create and…
Laser-plasma accelerators offer a compact means of producing high-energy electron beams, but their performance is fundamentally limited by dephasing between the accelerated electrons and the plasma wave. To overcome this limitation, we…
Generation of collimated, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams (peak energy ~17-22MeV, divergence ~10mrad, energy spread ~20%) by interaction of Ti:sapphire laser pulse of 200fs duration, focussed to an intensity of ~ 2.1x10^18 W/cm^2,with an…
While plasma often behaves diamagnetically, we demonstrate that the laser irradiation of a thin opaque target with an embedded target-transverse seed magnetic field $B_\mathrm{seed}$ can trigger the generation of an order-of-magnitude…
The accurate calculation of laser energy absorption during femto- or picosecond laser pulse experiments is very important for the description of the formation of periodic surface structures. On a rough material surface, a crack or a step…
An ultra-short (about 30 fs) petawatt laser pulse focused with a wide focal spot (about 100 microns) in a rarefied plasma (electron density of order 10^{17} per cm^3) excites a nonlinear plasma wakefield which can accelerate injected…
Ion acceleration driven by superintense laser pulses is attracting an impressive and steadily increasing effort. Motivations can be found in the potential for a number of foreseen applications and in the perspective to investigate novel…
The plasma-based acceleration is an encouraging technique to overcome the limits of the accelerating gradient in the conventional RF acceleration. A plasma accelerator is able to provide accelerating fields up to hundreds of $GeV/m$, paving…
The dynamics of electric field generation and radial acceleration of ions by a laser pulse of relativistic intensity propagating in an underdense plasma has been investigated using an one-dimensional electrostatic, ponderomotive model…
It is observed that the interaction of an intense ultra-short laser pulse with an overdense gas jet results in the pulse collapse and the deposition of a significant part of energy in a small and well localized volume in the rising part of…