Related papers: New grating compressor designs for XCELS and SEL-1…
We performed a series of numerical experiments to quantify the sensitivity of the predictions for weak lensing statistics obtained in raytracing DM-only simulations, to two hyper-parameters that influence the accuracy as well as the…
In the first part of this thesis I study the intermediate regime between ordinary lasing and a BEC of exciton polaritons. I take into account the fermionic structure of polaritons, treating the excitons as two-level systems coupled to a…
We present the development of a high power fibre laser system to investigate its suitability for use in a transverse electron beam profile monitor i.e. a laserwire. A system capable of producing individual pulses up to $165.8 \pm 0.4 \mu$J…
A wireless sensing architecture via pinching antenna systems is proposed. Compared to conventional wireless systems, PASS offers flexible antenna deployment and improved probing performance for wireless sensing by leveraging dielectric…
The significant growth of free-space optic communications and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is demanding gratings that emit highly collimated beams, i.e. with Rayleigh ranges of millimeters or even centimeters. Hence, weak-strength…
One highly desirable function of a diffraction grating is its ability to deflect incident light into a specific diffraction order with near-perfect efficiency. While such asymmetry can be achieved in a variety of ways, e.g., by using a…
A challenge in the design of stellarators for confining plasma at conditions relevant to fusion energy generation is designing a feasible set of magnetic field coils which can create the necessary confining field. One active direction of…
Electron acceleration has been optimized based on 3D PIC simulations of a short laser pulse interacting with low-density plasma targets to find the pulse propagation regime that maximizes the charge of high-energy electron bunches. This…
We study proton acceleration from a foil target with a transversely varying density using multi-dimensional Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations. In order to reduce electron heating and deformation of the target, circularly polarized Gaussian…
Astronomical imaging with micro-arcsecond ($\mu$as) angular resolution could enable breakthrough scientific discoveries. Previously-proposed $\mu$as X-ray imager designs have been interferometers with limited effective collecting area. Here…
We investigate the pulse partitioning of a 6.3 mJ, 450 fs pulse at 1030 nm to produce plasma channels. At such moderate energies, splitting the energy into several sub-pulses reduces the ionization efficiency and thus does not extend the…
We present an accurate and fast 3D simulation scheme for out-of-plane grating couplers, based on two dimensional rigorous (finite difference time domain) grating simulations, the effective index method (EIM), and the Rayleigh-Sommerfeld…
In undergraduate optics courses, diffraction gratings are studied extensively, generally within the scalar approximation. When the vector nature of light is taken into account, so-called polarization diffraction gratings have been proposed,…
One of the important advantages of optical metasurfaces over conventional diffractive optical elements is their capability to efficiently deflect light by large angles. However, metasurfaces are conventionally designed using approaches that…
An ideal plasma lens can provide the focusing power of a small f-number, solid-state focusing optic at a fraction of the diameter. An ideal plasma lens, however, relies on a steady-state, linear laser pulse-plasma interaction. Ultrashort…
Fast digitisers and digital pulse processing have been widely used for spectral application and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) owing to their advantages in terms of compactness, higher trigger rates, offline analysis, etc. Meanwhile, the…
The linear inverse source and scattering problems are studied from the perspective of compressed sensing, in particular the idea that sufficient incoherence and sparsity guarantee uniqueness of the solution. By introducing the sensor as…
A new adaptive predictive controller for constrained linear systems is presented. The main feature of the proposed controller is the partition of the input in two components. The first part is used to persistently excite the system, in…
The Zero Contrast Grating (ZCG) is a promising candidate for moded and dispersive mid-infrared (MIR) photonics for its broadband transmittance and reflectance greater than 99.9%. The optimal grating design including refractive index and…
We report the development and characterization of a pulsed 243 nm laser that is optimal for the cooling of positronium (Ps). The laser, which is based on the recent chirped pulse-train generator (CPTG) demonstrated by K. Yamada et al.…