Related papers: Optimizing laser coupling, matter heating, and par…
When a relativistically intense p-polarized laser pulse is grazingly incident onto a planar solid-state target, a slightly superluminal field structure is formed near the target surface due to the incident and reflected waves superposition.…
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…
Ultra-intense lasers produce and manipulate plasmas, allowing to locally generate extremely high static and electromagnetic fields. This Letter presents a concept of an ultra-intense optical tweezer, where two counter-propagating circularly…
During the past decade, the interaction of high-intensity lasers with solid targets has attracted much interest, regarding its potential in accelerating charged particles. In spite of tremendous progress in laser-plasma based acceleration,…
Recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons to MeV energies in ambient air using tightly focused laser configurations. In this article, we explore possible strategies to control and optimize the resulting…
High-energy-density flows through dense matter are needed for effective progress in the production of laser-driven intense sources of energetic particles and radiation, in driving matter to extreme temperatures creating state regimes…
The physics governing electron acceleration by a relativistically intense laser are not confined to the critical density surface, they also pervade the sub-critical plasma in front of the target. Here, particles can gain many times the…
The efficient generation of intense X-rays and $\gamma$-radiation is studied. The scheme is based on the relativistic mirror concept, {\it i.e.}, a flying thin plasma slab interacts with a counterpropagating laser pulse, reflecting part 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…
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…
Understanding the target dynamics during its interaction with a relativistic ultrashort laser pulse is a challenging fundamental multi-physics problem involving at least atomic and solid-state physics, plasma physics, and laser physics.…
We propose a scheme to overcome the great challenge of polarization loss in spin-polarized ion acceleration. When a petawatt laser pulse penetrates through a compound plasma target consisting of a double layer slab and prepolarized hydrogen…
We use PIC modeling to identify the acceleration mechanism responsible for the observed generation of super-hot electrons in ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions with solid targets with pre-formed plasma. We identify several features of…
In laser-solid interactions, electrons may be generated and subsequently accelerated to energies of the order-of-magnitude of the ponderomotive limit, with the underlying process dominated by direct laser acceleration. Breaking this limit,…
Surface plasmon (SP) excitation in intense laser interaction with solid target can be exploited for enhancing secondary emissions, in particular efficient acceleration of high charge electron bunches. Previous studies have mostly used…
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…
Ultrafast pump-probe experiments open the possibility to track fundamental material behaviour like changes in its electronic configuration in real time. To date, most of these experiments are performed using an electron or a high-energy…
The acceleration of polarized electrons, positrons, protons and ions in strong laser and plasma fields is a very attractive option to obtain polarized beams in the multi-MeV range. Recently, there has been substantial progress in the…
The excitation of surface plasmons with ultra-intense ($I\sim 5\times 10^{19}$ W/cm$^2$), high contrast ($\sim 10^{12}$) laser pulses on periodically-modulated solid targets has been recently demonstrated to produce collimated bunches of…
The interaction of an ultra-intense laser pulse with a near critical density target results in the formation of a plasma channel, a strong azimuthal magnetic field and moving vortices. An application of this is the generation of energetic…