Related papers: Modeling ultrafast shadowgraphy in laser-plasma in…
The recently discovered magnetization reversal driven solely by a femtosecond laser pulse has been shown to be a promising way to record information at record breaking speeds. Seeking to improve the recording density has raised intriguing…
The ultimate feature size is key in ultrafast laser material processing. A capacity to signiicantly exceed optical limits and to structure below 100nm is essential to advance ultrafast processing into the field of metamaterials. Such…
A thin layer of overdense plasma is created when an electromagnetic pulse interacts with a rapidly ionizing thin foil. This layer will reflect the incoming pulse, forming a so-called plasma mirror. A simple realistic model based on paired…
Ultrafast control of electron dynamics in solid state systems has recently found particular attention. By increasing the electric field strength of laser pulses, the light-matter interaction in solids might turn from a perturbative into a…
The emission of multi-MeV ($\gamma$-ray) photons from the interaction of a high-powered laser pulse with a dense plasma target is studied using particle-in-cell simulations. A new set of diagnostic techniques is presented and applied to…
High power short pulse lasers provide a promising route to study the strong field effects of the quantum vacuum, for example by direct photon-photon scattering in the all-optical regime. Theoretical predictions based on realistic laser…
Spasers have been theoretically predicted and experimentally observed and promise to deliver new exciting nanophotonic and biomedical applications. Here we theoretically investigate ultrafast dynamical properties of spasers with external…
We demonstrate a new ultrafast pulse reconstruction modality which is somewhat reminiscent of frequency resolved optical gating but uses a modified setup and a conceptually different reconstruction algorithm that is derived from…
Despite the multitude of available methods, the characterisation of ultrafast pulses remains a challenging endeavour, especially at the single-photon level. We introduce a pulse characterisation scheme that maps the magnitude of its…
We report on the first results of laser plasma wakefield acceleration driven by ultrashort mid-infrared laser pulses (\lambda= 3.9 \mu m, 100 fs, 0.25 TW), which enable near- and above-critical density interactions with moderate-density gas…
We present a novel approach for tailoring the laser induced surface topography upon femtosecond-fs pulsed laser irradiation. The method employs spatially controlled double fs laser pulses to actively regulate the hydrodynamic microfluidic…
An electron injector concept for laser-plasma accelerator was developed in ref [1] and [2] ; it relies on the use of counter-propagating ultrashort laser pulses. In [2], the scheme is as follows: the pump laser pulse generates a large…
Ultra-high intensity femtosecond lasers at focus are now routinely used for relativistic motion of charged particles with peak intensities over 10^18W/cm^2. Such high-field experiments are very sensitive to the value of the peak intensity.…
The interaction of intense laser beams with plasmas created on solid targets involves a rich non-linear physics. Because such dense plasmas are reflective for laser light, the coupling with the incident beam occurs within a thin layer at…
The complex interaction dynamics of intense femtosecond (fs) pulses and their picosecond (ps)-long leading edge with nanostructured solids occur at both the nanometer and the femtosecond scales, making them extremely difficult to measure…
A standardized phase retrieval algorithm is presented and applied to an industry-grade high-energy ultrashort pulsed laser to uncover its spatial phase distribution. We describe in detail how to modify the well-known algorithm in order to…
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…
Single-shot ultrafast optical imaging plays a very important role in the detection of transient scenes, especially in capturing irreversible or stochastic dynamic scenes. To break the limit of time response speed of electronic devices, such…
We review studies of superintense laser interaction with solid targets where the generation of propagating surface plasmons (or surface waves) plays a key role. These studies include the onset of plasma instabilities at the irradiated…
The use of structured ultrashort pulses with coupled spatiotemporal properties is emerging as a key tool for ultrafast manipulation. Ultrafast vector beams are opening exciting opportunities in different fields such as microscopy,…