English

Maximizing energy deposition by shaping few-cycle laser pulses

Optics 2018-06-26 v1

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the impact of pulse shape on the dynamics of laser-generated plasma in rare gases. Fast-rising triangular pulses with a slower decay lead to early ionization of the air and depose energy more efficiently than their temporally reversed counterparts. As a result, in both argon and krypton, the induced shockwave as well as the plasma luminescence are stronger. This is due to an earlier availability of free electrons to undergo inverse Bremsstrahlung on the pulse trailing edge. Our results illustrate the ability of adequately tailored pulse shapes to optimize the energy deposition in gas plasmas.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1806.08994,
  title  = {Maximizing energy deposition by shaping few-cycle laser pulses},
  author = {Julien Gateau and Alexander Patas and Mary Matthews and Sylvain Hermelin and Albrecht Lindinger and Jérôme Kasparian and Jean-Pierre Wolf},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.08994},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

11 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T02:39:24.540Z