Related papers: Nonlinear spatiotemporal control of laser intensit…
The interaction of a multi-Petawatt, pancake-shaped laser pulse with an unmagnetized plasma is studied analytically and numerically in the regime of fully relativistic electron jitter velocities and in the context of the laser wakefield…
Focusing control of ultrashort pulsed beams is an important research topic, due to its impact to subsequent interaction with matter. In this work, we study the propagation near the focus of ultrashort laser pulses of ~25 fs duration under…
A chirped laser pulse focused by a chromatic lens exhibits a dynamic, or "flying," focus in which the trajectory of the peak intensity decouples from the group velocity. In a medium, the flying focus can trigger an ionization front that…
We present the characterization of ultrashort laser pulses by using the plasma-induced frequency resolved optical switching (PI-FROSt) technique, implemented in ambient air. This recently developed method allows for a temporal…
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…
A nonlinear optical medium results by the collective orientation of liquid crystal molecules tightly coupled to a transparent photoconductive layer. We show that such a medium can give a large gain, thus, if inserted in a ring cavity, it…
A planar laser pulse propagating in vacuum can exhibit an extremely large ponderomotive force. This force, however, cannot impart net energy to an electron: As the pulse overtakes the electron, the initial impulse from its rising edge is…
Intense femtosecond laser pulses interacting with solids can drive electrons to relativistic energies, enabling miniaturized particle accelerators and bright extreme-ultraviolet light sources. In-situ space-time control of these electrons…
Adaptive methods of laser irradiation of plasmas are proposed consisting of deterministic, `on-off' amplitude modulations in time, and intermittently changing speckle-patterns. These laser pulses consist of a series of picosecond time-scale…
Strong mid-infrared light-matter interaction has attracted extensive attention as it opens up new frontiers in nonlinear optics. Here we observe through simulations a novel aspect of mid-infrared pulse dynamics in a high-pressure gas-filled…
Controlling the group velocity of an optical pulse typically requires traversing a material or structure whose dispersion is judiciously crafted. Alternatively, the group velocity can be modified in free space by spatially structuring the…
Advances of quantum control technology have led to nearly perfect single-qubit control of nuclear spins and atomic hyperfine ground states. In contrast, quantum control of strong optical transitions, even for free atoms, are far from being…
Light scattering in inhomogeneous media induces wavefront distortions which pose an inherent limitation in many optical applications. Examples range from microscopy and nanosurgery to astronomy. In recent years, ongoing efforts have made…
In this work, we investigate how and to which extent a quantum system can be driven along a prescribed path in Hilbert space by a suitably shaped laser pulse. To calculate the optimal, i.e., the variationally best pulse, a properly defined…
We describe how to control the motion -- both speed and propagation direction -- of a nonlinear traveling wave in real time via soliton management with time-varying dispersion/diffusion and loss/gain terms. When carried out subject to…
Velocity-controlled spatio-temporal (ST) laser drivers offer a route to tailoring laser-plasma interactions by allowing the velocity of the intensity peak to be controlled independently of the envelope group velocity. In this work, we…
Modulation of the optical index by means of atomic and material resonances provides a basis for controlling light propagation in natural and artificially fabricated materials. In addition, recent advances in the tuning of spatiotemporal…
Optical trapping, also known as optical tweezing or optical levitation, is a technique that uses highly focused laser beams to manipulate micro- and nanoscopic particles. In optical traps driven by high-energy pulses, material non-linearity…
We introduce an approach to implement full coherent control on nanometer length scales. It is based on spatio-temporal modulation of the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) fields at the thick edge of a nanowedge. The SPP wavepackets…
The strong influence of the electron dynamics provides the possibility of controlling the expansion of laser-produced plasmas by appropriately shaping the laser pulse. A simple irradiation scheme is proposed to tailor the explosion of large…