Multiterawatt laser system based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

A compact multiterawatt laser system based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification is demonstrated. Chirped pulses are amplified from 20 pJ to 900 mJ by two lithium triborate optical parametric preamplifiers and a final KDP optical parametric power amplifier with a pump energy of 5 J at 532 nm from Nd:YAG-Nd: glass hybrid amplifiers, After compression, we obtained a final output of 570-mJ-155-fs pulses with a peak power of 3.67 TW, which is the highest output power from an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification laser, to the best of our knowledge. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

Laser wakefield and self-modulation of driving pulse

A self-consistent theory of plasma response to a single laser beam is proposed. The driving pump is not viewed as invariant during its interaction with the plasmas. Its modulation by the plasmas has an obvious influence on the strength of the wakefield behind the pulse. This suggests that the compression of the low-intensity pulse by the plasmas might be a possible way to excite largae-amplitude wakefield. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Attosecond pulse extreme-ultraviolet photoionization in a two-color laser field

Attosecond-pulse extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) photoionization in a two-color laser field is investigated. Attosecond pulse trains with different numbers of pulses are examined, and their strong dependence on photoelectronic spectra is found. Single-color driving-laser-field-assisted attosecond XUV photoionization cannot determine the number of attosecond pulses from the photoelectronic energy spectrum that are detected orthogonally to the beam direction and the electric field vector of the linearly polarized laser field. A two-color-field-assisted XUV photoionization scheme is proposed for directly determining the number of attosecond pulses from a spectrum detected orthogonally. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.

Single attosecond pulse generation using two-color polarized time-gating technique

It is proposed that single attosecond pulses be generated via high-order harmonic generation by using a two-color pump pulse with time dependent ellipticity. The two-color pump pulse is created by the fundamental field and its second harmonic: the fundamental field is left-circularly polarized and the second harmonic is right-circularly polarized. Numerical simulations show that single attosecond pulses can be produced in the cut-off region by using the synthesis of 20 fs left-hand and right-hand circularly polarized pulses with a pulse delay of 20 fs. The attosecond pulses produced this way are much stronger than that produced by a few-cycle linear polarized pulse of comparable intensity. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America

Femtosecond pulse laser-induced self-organized nanostructures on the surface of ZnO crystal

This paper reports self-organized nanostructures observed on the surface of ZnO crystal after irradiation by a focused beam of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser with a repetition rate of 250 kHz. For a linearly polarized femtosecond laser, the periodic nanograting structure on the ablation crater surface was promoted. The period of self-organization structures is about 180 nm. The grating orientation is adjusted by the laser polarization direction. A long range Bragg-like grating is formed by moving the sample at a speed of 10 mu m/s. For a circularly polarized laser beam, uniform spherical nanoparticles were formed as a result of Coulomb explosion during the interaction of near-infrared laser with ZnO crystal.

Single sub-100 attosecond pulse generation in a two-colour time-gating laser field

We theoretically propose a method of generating a single sub-100 attosecond (as) pulse with a two-colour time-gating laser field. The field is synthesized by an 8 fs/800 nm (three optical cycles) pulse and a 24 fs/2400 nm (three optical cycles) pulse with an optimal time delay between them. In our simulation, we obtain a supercontinuum with an extremely broad spectrum of 150 eV and generate an isolated attosecond pulse with 96 as pulse duration without any dispersion compensation.

Short-pulse laser absorption in very steep plasma density gradients

An analytical fluid model for resonance absorption during the oblique incidence by femtosecond laser pulses on a small-scale-length density plasma [k(0)L is an element of(0.1,10)] is proposed. The physics of resonance absorption is analyzed more clearly as we separate the electric field into an electromagnetic part and an electrostatic part. It is found that the characteristics of the physical quantities (fractional absorption, optimum angle, etc.) in a small-scale-length plasma are quite different from the predictions of classical theory. Absorption processes are generally dependent on the density scale length. For shorter scale length or higher laser intensity, vacuum heating tends to be dominant. It is shown that the electrons being pulled out and then returned to the plasma at the interface layer by the wave field can lead to a phenomenon like wave breaking. This can lead to heating of the plasma at the expanse of the wave energy. It is found that the optimum angle is independent of the laser intensity while the absorption rate increases with the laser intensity, and the absorption rate can reach as high as 25%. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Short-pulse laser absorption via J x B heating in ultrahigh intensity laser plasma interaction

An analytical fluid model for JxB heating during the normal incidence by a short ultraintense linearly polarized laser on a solid-density plasma is proposed. The steepening of an originally smooth electron density profile as the electrons are pushed inward by the laser is included self-consistently. It is shown that the JxB heating includes two distinct coupling processes depending on the initial laser and plasma conditions: for a moderate intensity (a <= 1), the ponderomotive force of the laser light can drive a large plasma wave at the point n(e)=4 gamma(0)n(c) resonantly. When this plasma wave is damped, the energy is transferred to the plasma. At higher intensity, the electron density is steepened to a high level by the time-independent ponderomotive force, n(e)> 4 gamma(0)n(c), so that no 2 omega resonance will occur, but the longitudinal component of the oscillating ponderomotive field can lead to an absorption mechanism similar to "vacuum heating." (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

Femtosecond pulse laser-induced self-organized nanogratings on the surface of a ZnSe crystal

Periodic nanostructures are observed on the surface of ZnSe after irradiation by a focused beam of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser, which are aligned perpendicular to the laser polarization direction. The period of self-organized grating structures is about 160 nm. The phenomenon is interpreted in terms of interference between the incident light field and the surface scattered wave of 800-nm laser pulses. With the laser polarization parallel to the moving direction we produce long-range Bragg-like gratings by slowly moving the crystal under a fixed laser focus. The nanograting orientation is adjusted by laser polarization and the accumulation effect.