Related papers: Plasma mirrors as a path to the Schwinger limit
Semiconductor lasers in use today rely on mirrors based on the reflection at a cleaved facet or Bragg reflection from a periodic stack of layers. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-small laser with a mirror based on the Fano resonance between a…
When an electromagnetic wave is obliquely incident on an inhomogeneous high density plasma, it will be absorbed resonantly as long as it is polarized in the plane of incidence and has an electric field component along the plasma electron…
Harmonic generation in the limit of ultra-steep density gradients is studied experimentally. Observations demonstrate that while the efficient generation of high order harmonics from relativistic surfaces requires steep plasma density…
Using particle-in-cell simulations of relativistic laser plasma wakes in the presence of an external magnetic field, we demonstrate that there exists a parameter window where the dynamics of the magnetized wake channel are largely…
Filamentation of linear polarized ultrashort laser pulses in non-axisymmetric optical schemes with preferential directions to the optical axis in dependence on the beam orientation was experimentally studied. Our experiments demonstrated…
Creation of electrons and positrons from light alone is a basic prediction of quantum electrodynamics, but yet to be observed. Here we show that it is possible to create ${>}10^8$ positrons by dual laser irradiation of a structured plasma…
The generation of collimated, high brilliance $\gamma$-ray beams from a structured plasma channel target is studied by means of 2D PIC simulations. Simulation results reveal an optimum laser pulse pulse duration of $20\,\text{fs}$, for…
Circularly polarized colliding laser pulses can create abundant electron-positron pair plasma [A. R. Bell and J. G. Kirk, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 200403 (2008)], which scattering the incoming electromagnetic waves can prevent them from…
Ultrafast lasers ($< 500$ fs) have enabled laser-matter interactions at intensities exceeding $10^{18} \rm{Wcm}^{-2}$ with only millijoules of laser energy. However, as pulse durations become shorter, larger spectral bandwidths are…
Motivated by experiments employing ps-long, kilojoule laser pulses, we examined x-ray emission in a finite-length underdense plasma irradiated by such a pulse using two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We found that, in addition to…
Relativistic transparency enables volumetric laser interaction with overdense plasmas and direct laser acceleration of electrons to relativistic velocities. The dense electron current generates a magnetic filament with field strength of the…
We show that a passive dispersive reflector integrated into a semiconductor laser can be used to tailor the laser dynamics for the generation of ultrashort pulses as well as stable dual-mode lasing. We analyze the stability using a general…
We report on a numerical observation of the train of zeptosecond pulses produced by reflection of a relativistically intense femtosecond laser pulse from the oscillating boundary of an overdense plasma because of the Doppler effect. These…
Raman amplification of a short laser pulse off a long laser beam has been demonstrated successfully for moderate probe intensities ($\sim 10^{16}$ W/cm$^2$) and widths ($\sim 50$ micron). However, truly competitive intensities can only be…
We present an in-depth experimental-computational study of the parameters necessary to optimize a tunable, quasi-monoenergetic, efficient, low-background Compton backscattering (CBS) x-ray source that is based on the self-aligned…
The interaction between refraction from a distribution of inhomogeneous plasma and gravitational lensing introduces novel effects to the paths of light rays passing by a massive object. The plasma contributes additional terms to the…
A quantum fluid model is used to describe the interacion of a nondegenerate cold relativistic electron beam with an intense optical wiggler taking into account the beam space-charge potential and photon recoil effect. A nonlinear set of…
The radiation pressure of next generation ultra-high intensity ($>10^{23}$ W/cm$^{2}$) lasers could efficiently accelerate ions to GeV energies. However, nonlinear quantum-electrodynamic effects play an important role in the interaction of…
The production of broadband, terawatt terahertz (THz) pulses has been demonstrated by irradiating relativistic lasers on solid targets. However, the generation of extremely powerful, narrow-band, and frequency-tunable THz pulses remains a…
In this paper we study photon emission in the interaction of the laser beam with an under-dense target and the attached reflecting plasma mirror. Photons are emitted due to the inverse Compton scattering when accelerated electrons interact…