We present a model that elucidates the physics underlying the generation of an electromagnetic pulse from a femtosecond laser induced plasma channel. The radiation pressure force from the laser pulse spatially separates the ionized electrons from the heavier ions and the induced dipole moment subsequently oscillates at the plasma frequency and radiates an electromagnetic pulse.
Formation of femtosecond sawtooth pulses by high harmonic generation from relativistic oscillating mirrors is studied. For oblique incidence of $p$-polarized laser pulse, one can efficiently control the intensity of the first few harmonics by modifying the plasma density gradient at the plasma-vacuum interface. With appropriate choice of the laser amplitude and incidence angle, the generated harmonics can form a millijoule femtosecond sawtooth pulse. The scheme does not rely on phase manipulation and/or pulse synchronization as in the state-of-art methods. It is also shown that such a sawtooth…
We present the first fundamental simulation method for the determination of crater morphology due to femtosecond-pulse laser damage. To this end we have adapted the particle-in-cell (PIC) method commonly used in plasma physics for use in the study of laser damage, and developed the first implementation of a pair-potential for PIC codes. We find that the PIC method is a complementary approach to modeling laser damage, bridging the gap between fully ab-initio molecular dynamics approaches and empirical models. We demonstrate our method by modeling a femtosecond-pulse laser incident on a flat cop…
We perform a theoretical investigation of the clamped laser intensity inside the filament plasma as a function of gas pressure with external focusing. Unlike the clamped intensity under the selffocusing condition, which is independent on the gas pressure, the clamped intensity with external focusing decreases with the gas pressure. Our findings can explain the changes of the signals of femtosecond-laser-induced 391-nm forward emission and fluorescence with the nitrogen gas pressure.
Powerful femtosecond laser pulses that propagate through narrow ablating capillaries cause modification of capillary walls, which is studied experimentally and theoretically. At low intensities, laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) and porous coating composed of sub-micron particles appear on the walls. At higher intensities, the surface is covered by deposited droplets of the size up to 10 $μ$m. In both cases, the ablated material forms a solid plug that completely blocks the capillary after several hundreds or thousands of pulses. The suggested theoretical model indicates that p…
We present direct time- and space- resolved measurements of the electron density of femtosecond laser pulse-induced plasma filaments. The dominant nonlinearity responsible for extended atmospheric filaments is shown to be field-induced rotation of air molecules.
Laser induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) are formed by multiple irradiation of femtosecond laser on a silicon target. In this paper, we focus and discuss the surface plasmon polariton mechanism by an analysis of transient phase-matching conditions in Si on the basis of a single pulse experiment and numerical simulations. Two regimes of ripple formation mechanisms at low number of shots are identified and detailed. Correlation of numerical and experimental results is good.
Laser-plasma electron accelerators can be used to produce high-intensity X-rays, as electrons accelerated in wakefields emit radiation due to betatron oscillations.Such X-ray sources inherit the features of the electron beam; sub-femtosecond electron bunches produce betatron sources of the same duration, which in turn allow probing matter on ultrashort time scales. In this paper we show, via Particle-in-Cell simulations, that attosecond electron bunches can be obtained using low-energy, ultra-short laser beams both in the self-injection and the controlled injection regimes at low plasma densit…
It is well known that optical emission produced by femtosecond laser-induced breakdown on a surface may be enhanced by using a pair of laser pulses separated by a suitable delay. Here we elucidate the mechanism for this effect both experimentally and theoretically. Using a bilayer sample consisting of a thin film of Ag deposited on an Al substrate as the ablation target and measuring the breakdown spectrum as a function of fluence and pulse delay, it is shown experimentally that the enhanced signal is not caused by additional ablation initiated by the second pulse. Rather, particle-in-cell cal…
Coulomb explosion is revisited on the basis of explosion theory. The characteristics of the Coulomb explosion such as the ion kinetic energy, the energy distribution function, the laser absorption length along with the neutron yield are determined. The model explains reasonably well the experimental results.
The interaction of intense femtosecond laser pulses with atomic Argon clusters has been investigated by using nano-plasma model. Based on the dynamic simulations, ionization process, heating and expansion of a cluster after irradiation by femtosecond laser pulses at intensities up to 2*1017 Wcm-2 are studied. The analytical calculation provides ionization ratefor different mechanisms and time evolution of the density of electrons for different pulse shapes. In this approach the strong dependence of laser intensity, pulse duration and laser shape on the electron energy, the electron density and…
Using high-resolution, two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate numerically the mechanisms of terahertz (THz) emissions in submicron-thick carbon solid foils driven by ultraintense ($\sim 10^{20}\,\rm W\,cm^{-2}$), ultrashort ($30\,\rm fs$) laser pulses at normal incidence. The considered range of target thicknesses extends down to the relativistic transparency regime that is known to optimize ion acceleration by femtosecond laser pulses. By disentangling the fields emitted by longitudinal and transverse currents, our analysis reveals that, within the first picosecond after…
Consolidating multiple high-energy femtosecond scale lasers is expected to enable implementation of cutting edge research areas varying from wakefield particle accelerators to ultra-high intensity laser pulses for basic fresearch. The ability to guide while augmenting a short-pulse laser is crucial in future laser based TeV particle accelerators where the laser energy depletion is the major setback. We propose, analyze and experimentally demonstrate consolidating multiple femtosecond pulse lasers in coupled curved capillaries. We demonstrate a proof of principle scheme of coupled curved capill…
In this work, we will show through three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that direct laser acceleration in laser a wakefield accelerator can generate sub-femtosecond electron bunches. Two simulations were done with two laser pulse durations, such that the shortest laser pulse occupies only a fraction of the first bubble, whereas the longer pulse fills the entire first bubble. In the latter case, as the trapped electrons moved forward and interacted with the high intensity region of the laser pulse, micro-bunching occurred naturally, producing 0.5 fs electron bunches. This is not obser…
Using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we show that few-MeV electrons can be produced by focusing tightly few-cycle radially-polarized laser pulses in a low-density atomic gas. In particular, it is observed that for the few-TW laser power needed to reach relativistic electron energies, longitudinal attosecond microbunching occurs naturally, resulting in femtosecond structures with high-contrast attosecond density modulations. The three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that in the relativistic regime the leading pulse of these attosecond substructures survives to pro…
The wake field excitation in an unmagnetized plasma by a multi-petawatt, femtosecond, pancake-shaped laser pulse is described both analytically and numerically in the regime with ultrarelativistic electron jitter velocities, when the plasma electrons are almost expelled from the pulse region. This is done, for the first time, in fluid theory. A novel mathematical model is devised that does not break down for very intense pump strengths, in contrast to the standard approach that uses the laser field envelope and the ponderomotive guiding center averaging. This is accomplished by employing a thr…
We propose a simple laser-driven electron acceleration scheme based on tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses for the production of femtosecond electron bunches with energies in the few-hundreds-of-keV range. In this method, the electrons are accelerated forward in the focal volume by the longitudinal electric field component of the laser pulse. Three-dimensional test-particle and particle-in-cell simulations reveal the feasibility of generating well-collimated electron bunches with an energy spread of 5% and a temporal duration of the order of 1 fs. These results offer a route toward…
Using shadow photography technique we have observed shock acoustic wave from optical breakdown, excited in water by tightly focused Cr:Forsterite femtosecond laser beam, and have found two different regimes of shock wave generation by varying only the energy of laser pulse. At low energies a single spherical shock wave is generated from laser beam waist, and its radius tends to saturation with energy increasing. At higher energies long laser filament in water is fired, that leads to the cylindrical shock wave generation, which longitude increases logarithmically with laser pulse energy. From s…
A theoretical model is developed for the interaction of intense femtosecond laser pulses with solid targets on the basis of the two-temperature equation of state for an irradiated substance. It allows the description of the dynamics of the plasma formation and expansion. Comparison of available experimental data on the amplitude and phase of the complex reflection coefficient of aluminum with the simulation results provides new information on the transport coefficients and absorption capacity of the strongly coupled Al plasma over a wide range of temperatures and pressures.
Photon engineering can be exploited to control the nonlinear evolution of the drive pulse in a laser-plasma accelerator (LPA), offering new avenues to tailor electron beam phase space on a femtosecond time scale. One promising option is to drive an LPA with an incoherent stack of two sub-Joule, multi-TW pulses of different colors. Slow self-compression of the bi-color optical driver delays electron dephasing, boosting electron beam energy without accumulation of a massive low-energy tail. The modest energy of the stack affords kHz-scale repetition rate at manageable laser average power. Propag…
