A THz laser generation utilizing a helical relativistic electron beam propagating through a strong magnetic field is discussed. The initial amplification rate in this scheme is much stronger than that in the conventional free electron laser. A magnetic field of the order of Tesla can yield a radiation in the range of 0.5 to 3 THz, corresponding to the total energy of mJ and the duration of tens of pico-second, or the temporal power of the order of GW.
A new type of the THz laser is proposed. A coherent tera-hertz light is emitted through the backward Raman scattering between a visible light laser and a relativistic electron beam. The threshold conditions for the laser intensity and the electron beam density are identified. The scheme may lead to one of the most intense tera-hertz coherent light sources.
There are implementations and proposals for using microwave or optical radiation for electron acceleration, undulation, deflection, and spatial as well as temporal focusing. Using terahertz (THz) radiation in such applications can be superior to microwave or optical radiation since THz pulses can be generated with significantly smaller temporal jitter to the electron bunch to be manipulated as compared to microwave pulses, and contrary to the optical pulses, the much larger wavelength of THz pulses compares well with typical sizes of electron bunches. Recently generation of ultrashort THz puls…
We report a plasma-based strong THz source generated by using intense femtosecond laser pulses to irradiate solid targets at relativistic intensity >10^18W/cm2. Energies up to 50 microJ/sr per THz pulse is observed in the specular direction when the laser pulses are incident onto a copper foil at 67.5 degree. The source appears to be linearly polarized. The temporal, spectral properties of the THz are measured by a single shot, electro-optic sampling method with a chirped laser pulse. The THz radiation is attributed to the self-organized transient fast electron currents formed along the target…
A new way of the THz light generation is considered. A tera-hertz light is emitted from the interaction between a high frequency microwave and a relativistic electron beam, via the backward Raman scattering. The up-shifting of the frequency occurs through the relativistic Doppler's effect. This scheme may lead to a cheap and compact tera-hertz light sources.
A scheme of THz radiation using two moderately intense lasers and a moderately relativistic electron beam is proposed. In the scheme, a laser encounters a co-propagating relativistic electron beam, and excites plasmons via the two-plasmon decay. The excited plasmons will emit the THz radiations, interacting with the second laser via the Raman scattering. Our estimation suggests that the mena-free-path of the pump laser to the THz radiation is much shorter than the Thomson scattering. The physical parametes for practical interests are presented.
This paper discusses numerical and experimental results on frequency downshifting and upshifting of a 10 $μ$m infrared laser to cover the entire wavelength (frequency) range from $λ$=1-150 $μ$m ($ν$=300-2 THz) using two different plasma techniques. The first plasma technique utilizes frequency downshifting of the drive laser pulse in a nonlinear plasma wake. Based on this technique, we have proposed and demonstrated that in a tailored plasma structure multi-millijoule energy, single-cycle, long-wavelength IR (3-20 $μ$m) pulses can be generated by using an 810 nm Ti:sapphire drive laser. Here w…
We propose a method to generate isolated relativistic terahertz (THz) pulses using a high-power laser irradiating a mirco-plasma-waveguide (MPW). When the laser pulse enters the MPW, high-charge electron bunches are produced and accelerated to ~ 100 MeV by the transverse magnetic modes. A substantial part of the electron energy is transferred to THz emission through coherent diffraction radiation as the electron bunches exit the MPW. We demonstrate this process with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The frequency of the radiation is determined by the incident laser duration, and …
A new scheme of the THz light source is proposed. The excitation of the Langmuir wave in a moderately relativistic electron beam via the two-stream instability and the subsequent interaction of the excited Langmuir wave with the visible light laser results in THz ligh via the Raman scattering. The cost of the current scheme could be cheaper than the conventional technologies by using the electron beam from cathodes and low-intensity infra-red laser.
The interaction between an intense laser and a relativistic dense electron beam propagating in the same direction could down-shift the laser frequency. This process, which can be used to generate a coherent THz radiation, is theoretically analyzed. With a set of practically relevant parameters, it is suggested that the radiation energy could reach the order of 1 mJ per shot in the duration of 100 pico-second, or the temporal radiation power of 10 MW.
We refine the method towards extraction of sub-cycle transients in the 0.1-1 THz frequency (mm-wavelength) range from optical rectification in lithium niobate using tilted pulse fronts. Our scheme exploits previously unexplored spatio-temporal shaping of the pump pulses, resulting in highly efficient and near diffraction-limited sub-THz transients reaching 0.2 GV/m electric field strengths in free-space using only mJ-level optical ps-pulses. We address experimentally and theoretically the means to producing above-GV/m relativistic sub-THz transients with proper beam confinement and under moder…
Streaking of photoelectrons with optical lasers has been widely used for temporal characterization of attosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses. Recently, this technique has been adapted to characterize femtosecond x-ray pulses in free-electron lasers with the streaking imprinted by farinfrared and Terahertz (THz) pulses. Here, we report successful implementation of THz streaking for time-stamping of an ultrashort relativistic electron beam of which the energy is several orders of magnitude higher than photoelectrons. Such ability is especially important for MeV ultrafast electron diffraction (UED…
The probability to record a twisted photon produced by a cold relativistic particle bunch of charged particles is derived. The radiation of twisted photons by such particle bunches in stationary electromagnetic fields and in propagating electromagnetic waves is investigated. It is shown that the incoherent radiation by bunches of particles traversing normally an isotropic dispersive medium (the edge, transition, and Vavilov-Cherenkov radiations) and by bunches moving in a helical undulator does not depend on the azimuthal distribution of particles in the bunch and is the same as for round bunc…
We introduce a solution for producing ultrashort ($\sim$fs) high charge ($\sim$pC) from ultra-compact guns utilizing single-cycle THz pulses. We show that the readily available THz pulses with energies as low as 20 ?J are sufficient to generate multi-10 keV electron bunches. Moreover, It is demonstrated that THz energies of 2mJ are sufficient to generate relativistic electron bunches with higher than 2 MeV energy. The high acceleration gradients possible in the structures provide 30 fs electron bunches at 30 keV energy and 45 fs bunches at 2 MeV energy. These structures will underpin future de…
We propose a radiation source based on a magnetic mirror cavity. Relativistic electrons are simulated entering the cavity and their trajectories and resulting emission spectra are calculated. The uniformity of the particle orbits is found to result in a frequency comb in terahertz range, the precise energies of which are tuneable by varying the electron's $γ$-factor. For very high energy particles radiation friction causes the spectral harmonics to broaden and we suggest this as a possible way to verify competing classical equations of motion.
Nonlinear THz photonics is probably the last frontier of nonlinear optics. The strength of both the electric and the magnetic fields of these ultrashort low frequency light bunches opens the way to exciting science and applications. Progress in the field though is slow because of the deficiency in suitable sources. Here we show that two-color filamentation of mid-infrared 3.9 um laser pulses allows one to generate single cycle THz pulses with multi-millijoule energies and extreme conversion efficiencies. Moreover, the focused THz peak electric and magnetic fields reach values of GV/cm and kT, …
We propose a twisted plasma accelerator capable of generating relativistic electron vortex beams with helical current profiles. The angular momentum of these vortex bunches is quantized, dominates their transverse motion, and results in spiraling particle trajectories around the twisted wakefield. We focus on a laser wakefield acceleration scenario, driven by a laser beam with a helical spatiotemporal intensity profile, also known as a light spring. We find that these light springs can rotate as they excite the twisted plasma wakefield, providing a new mechanism to control the twisted wakefiel…
Visualizing ultrafast dynamics at the atomic scale requires time-resolved pump-probe characterization with femtosecond temporal resolution. For single-shot ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) with fully relativistic electron bunch probes, existing techniques are limited by the achievable electron probe bunch length, charge, and timing jitter. We present the first experimental demonstration of pump-probe UED with THz-driven compression and time-stamping that enable UED probes with unprecedented temporal resolution. This technique utilizes two counter-propagating quasi-single-cycle THz pulses g…
The generation of single-cycle attosecond pulses based on Thomson scattering of terahertz (THz) pulses is proposed. In the scheme, a high-quality relativistic electron beam produced by a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator (LPWA), is sent through suitable magnetic devices to produce ultrathin electron layers for coherent Thomson backscattering of intense THz pulses. According to numerical simulations, single-cycle attosecond pulse generation is possible with up to 1 nJ energy. The waveform of the attosecond pulses closely resembles that of the THz pulses. This allows for a flexible waveform con…
Oblique Bragg-Doppler scattering at relativistic grating created by backward Raman amplification in hydrogen
Russell Centre for Advanced Lightwave Science, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics and Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)（中国科学院上海光学精密机械研究所杭州分院）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Microstructured Specialty Optical Fiber, Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics（浙江省微结构特种光纤重点实验室，中国科学院上海光学精密机械研究所杭州分院）
Waveform shaping and frequency synthesis based on waveform modulation is ubiquitous in electronics, telecommunication technology, and optics. For optical waveforms, the carrier frequency is on the order of several hundred THz, while the modulation frequencies used in conventional devices like electro- or acousto-optical modulators are orders of magnitude lower. As a consequence, any new frequencies are typically very close to the fundamental. The synthesis of new frequencies in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV), e.g. by using relativistic oscillating mirrors, requires modulation frequencies in the…
Until recently, the interaction of electromagnetic waves with crystals built from parallel metallic wires (wire media) was analyzed in the approximation of isotropic scattering of the electromagnetic wave by a single wire. However, if the wires are thick (kR~1), electromagnetic wave scattering by a wire is anisotropic, i.e., the scattering amplitude depends on the scattering angle. In this work, we derive the equations that describe diffraction of electromagnetic waves and spontaneous emission of charged particles in wire media, and take into account the angular dependence of scattering amplit…
Today's high-power laser systems are capable of reaching photon intensities up to $10^{22}$ W/cm^2, generating plasmas when interacting with material. The high intensity and ultrashort laser pulse duration (fs) make direct observation of plasma dynamics a challenging task. In the field of laser-plasma physics and especially for the acceleration of ions, the spatio-temporal intensity distribution is one of the most critical aspects. We describe a novel method based on a single-shot (i.e. single laser pulse) chirped probing scheme, taking nine sequential frames at framerates up to THz. This tech…
THz spectroscopy is an emerging tool for detection of microorganisms and harmful compounds in the food industry, the study of proteins in biomedicine and the development of electron-beam X-ray sources for molecular imaging and lithography. Recording of THz electric field evolution in single-shot is crucially needed in terahertz spectroscopy of irreversible processes in such applications as well as for data communication in the THz portion of the spectrum where there is an abundance of untapped bandwidth. However, achieving sub-picosecond resolution over a long time window has been an open prob…
