Related papers: Sustained Comoving Acceleration of Overdense Plasm…
The interaction of two laser pulses in an underdense plasma has proven to be able to inject electrons in plasma waves, thus providing a stable and tunable source of electrons. Whereas previous works focused on the "beatwave" injection…
Using a kilojoule class laser, we demonstrate for the first time that high-contrast picosecond pulses are advantageous for ion acceleration. We show that a laser pulse with optimum duration and a large focal spot accelerates electrons…
Propagation of short and ultra-intense laser pulses in a semi-infinite space of overdense hydrogen plasma is analyzed via fully-relativistic, real geometry particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations including radiation friction. The relativistic…
It is observed that the interaction of an intense ultra-short laser pulse with an overdense gas jet results in the pulse collapse and the deposition of a significant part of energy in a small and well localized volume in the rising part of…
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…
The generation of electron surface oscillations in overdense plasmas irradiated at normal incidence by an intense laser pulse is investigated. Two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell simulations show a transition from a planar, electrostatic…
A high-intensity laser beam propagating through a dense plasma drives a strong current that robustly sustains a strong quasi-static Mega Tesla-level azimuthal magnetic field. The transverse laser field efficiently accelerates electrons in…
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 acceleration of ions in the interaction of high intensity laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated with particle-in-cell simulations. For circular polarization of the laser pulses, high-density ion bunches moving into the…
We study the laser-driven acceleration of electrons from overdense hydrogen clusters to energies of up to 13 MeV in laser forward direction and several hundreds of keV in an outer ring-like structure. The use of cryogenic hydrogen allows…
A new electron acceleration mechanism is identified that develops when a relativistically intense laser irradiates the wedge of an over-dense plasma. This induces a diffracted electromagnetic wave with a significant longitudinal electric…
Laser-solid interaction can lead to the acceleration of protons to tens of MeV. Here, we show that a strong enhancement of this acceleration can be achieved by splitting the laser pulse to two parts of equal energy and opposite incidence…
Laser plasma interaction with micro-engineered targets at relativistic intensities has been greatly promoted by recent progress in the high contrast lasers and the manufacture of advanced micro- and nano-structures. This opens new…
We measure the emission of energetic electrons from the interaction between ultrashort laser pulses and a solid density plasma in the relativistic regime. We detect an electron beam that only appears with few-cycle pulses (< 10 fs) and…
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.…
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…
Particle acceleration using ultraintense, ultrashort laser pulses is one of the most attractive topics in relativistic laser-plasma research. We report proton/ion acceleration in the intensity range of 5x1019 W/cm2 to 3.3x1020 W/cm2 by…
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,…
We have investigated proton acceleration in the forward direction from a near-critical density hydrogen gas jet target irradiated by a high intensity (10^18 W/cm^2), short-pulse (5 ps) laser with wavelength of 1.054 micron. We observe the…
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…