Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas

Xing-Long Zhu; Su-Ming Weng; Min Chen; Zheng-Ming Sheng; Jie Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41377-020-0282-3

Go to Nature Website

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas

Article

- Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas
- Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas
- LSA 2020年9卷第2期页码：405-413
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (MOE), School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240 Shanghai, China
  2.Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240 Shanghai, China
  3.SUPA, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK
  4.Cockcroft Institute, Sci-Tech Daresbury, Cheshire WA4 4AD, UK
  5.Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, 200240 Shanghai, China
  6.Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190 Beijing, China
- Author bio：
  
  Su-Ming Weng (wengsuming@sjtu.edu.cn)
  Zheng-Ming Sheng (z.sheng@strath.ac.uk)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-020-0282-3
  中图分类号：
- 纸质出版日期：2020，
  
  网络出版日期：2020-03-20，
  
  收稿日期：2019-09-16，
  
  修回日期：2020-02-29，
  
  录用日期：2020-03-04
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas[J]. LSA, 2020,9(2):405-413.

Zhu, X. L. et al. Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas. Light: Science & Applications, 9, 405-413 (2020).
Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas[J]. LSA, 2020,9(2):405-413. DOI： 10.1038/s41377-020-0282-3.

Zhu, X. L. et al. Efficient generation of relativistic near-single-cycle mid-infrared pulses in plasmas. Light: Science & Applications, 9, 405-413 (2020). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-020-0282-3.

摘要

Abstract

Ultrashort intense optical pulses in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) region are very important for broad applications ranging from super-resolution spectroscopy to attosecond X-ray pulse generation and particle acceleration. However

currently

it is still difficult to produce few-cycle mid-IR pulses of relativistic intensities using standard optical techniques. Here

we propose and numerically demonstrate a novel scheme to produce these mid-IR pulses based on laser-driven plasma optical modulation. In this scheme

a plasma wake is first excited by an intense drive laser pulse in an underdense plasma

and a signal laser pulse initially at the same wavelength (1 micron) as that of the drive laser is subsequently injected into the plasma wake. The signal pulse is converted to a relativistic multi-millijoule near-single-cycle mid-IR pulse with a central wavelength of ~5 microns via frequency-downshifting

where the energy conversion efficiency is as high as approximately 30% when the drive and signal laser pulses are both at a few tens of millijoules at the beginning. Our scheme can be realized with terawatt-class kHz laser systems

which may bring new opportunities in high-field physics and ultrafast science.

关键词

Keywords

references

Maiman, T. H. Stimulated optical radiation in ruby.Nature187, 493-494 (1960)..

Strickland, D.&Mourou, G. Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses.Opt. Commun.55, 447-449 (1985)..

Mourou, G. A., Tajima, T.&Bulanov, S. V. Optics in the relativistic regime.Rev. Mod. Phys.78, 309-371 (2006)..

Di Piazza, A. et al. Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems.Rev. Mod. Phys.84, 1177-1228 (2012)..

Mourou, G.&Tajima, T. Summary of the IZEST science and aspiration.Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top.223, 979-984 (2014)..

Zhu, X. L. et al. Dense GeV electron-positron pairs generated by lasers in near-critical-density plasmas.Nat. Commun.7, 13686 (2016)..

Zhu, X. L. et al. Bright attosecondγ-ray pulses from nonlinear Compton scattering with laser-illuminated compound targets.Appl. Phys. Lett.112, 174102 (2018)..

Zhu, X. L. et al. Generation of GeV positron andγ-photon beams with controllable angular momentum by intense lasers.N. J. Phys.20, 083013 (2018)..

Mourou, G. et al. Single cycle thin film compressor opening the door to Zeptosecond-Exawatt physics.Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top.223, 1181-1188 (2014)..

Farinella, D. M. et al. Focusability of laser pulses at petawatt transport intensities in thin-film compression.J. Optical Soc. Am. B36, A28-A32 (2019)..

Brabec, T.&Krausz, F. Intense few-cycle laser fields: frontiers of nonlinear optics.Rev. Mod. Phys.72, 545-591 (2000)..

Krausz, F.&Ivanov, M. Attosecond physics.Rev. Mod. Phys.81, 163-234 (2009)..

Popmintchev, T. et al. Bright coherent ultrahigh harmonics in the keV X-ray regime from mid-infrared femtosecond lasers.Science336, 1287-1291 (2012)..

Hernández-García, C. et al. Zeptosecond high harmonic keV X-Ray waveforms driven by midinfrared laser pulses.Phys. Rev. Lett.111, 033002 (2013)..

Hochstrasser, R. M. Two-dimensional spectroscopy at infrared and optical frequencies.Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA104, 14190-14196 (2007)..

Yan, M. et al. Mid-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy with electro-optic modulators.Light Sci. Appl.6, e17076 (2017)..

Blaga, C. I. et al. Imaging ultrafast molecular dynamics with laser-induced electron diffraction.Nature483, 194-197 (2012)..

Silva, F. et al. Multi-octave supercontinuum generation from mid-infrared filamentation in a bulk crystal.Nat. Commun.3, 807 (2012)..

Tajima, T.&Dawson, J. Laser electron accelerator.Phys. Rev. Lett.43, 267-270 (1979)..

Nakajima, K. et al. Observation of ultrahigh gradient electron acceleration by a self-modulated intense short laser pulse.Phys. Rev. Lett.74, 4428-4431 (1995)..

Woodbury, D. et al. Laser wakefield acceleration with mid-IR laser pulses.Opt. Lett.43, 1131-1134 (2018)..

Colosimo, P. et al. Scaling strong-field interactions towards the classical limit.Nat. Phys.4, 386-389 (2008)..

Wolter, B. et al. Strong-field physics with mid-IR fields.Phys. Rev. X5, 021034 (2015)..

Samsonova, Z. et al. Relativistic interaction of long-wavelength ultrashort laser pulses with nanowires.Phys. Rev. X9, 021029 (2019)..

Weisshaupt, J. et al. High-brightness table-top hard X-ray source driven by sub-100-femtosecond mid-infrared pulses.Nat. Photonics8, 927-930 (2014)..

Pupeza, I. et al. High-power sub-two-cycle mid-infrared pulses at 100 MHz repetition rate.Nat. Photonics9, 721-724 (2015)..

Balciunas, T. et al. A strong-field driver in the single-cycle regime based on self-compression in a kagome fibre.Nat. Commun.6, 6117 (2015)..

Shumakova, V. et al. Multi-millijoule few-cycle mid-infrared pulses through nonlinear self-compression in bulk.Nat. Commun.7, 12877 (2016)..

Krogen, P. et al. Generation and multi-octave shaping of mid-infrared intense single-cycle pulses.Nat. Photonics11, 222-226 (2017)..

Zhang, J. W. et al. Multi-mW, few-cycle mid-infrared continuum spanning from 500 to 2250 cm-1.Light Sci. Appl.7, 17180 (2018)..

Thaury,C. et al. Plasma mirrors for ultrahigh-intensity optics.Nat. Phys.3, 424-429 (2007)..

Leblanc, A. et al. Plasma holograms for ultrahigh-intensity optics.Nat. Phys.13, 440-443 (2017)..

Yu, L. L. et al. Plasma optical modulators for intense lasers.Nat. Commun.7, 11893 (2016)..

Chen, M. et al. Tunable synchrotron-like radiation from centimeter scale plasma channels.Light Sci. Appl.5, e16015 (2016)..

Weng, S. M. et al. Extreme case of Faraday effect: magnetic splitting of ultrashort laser pulses in plasmas.Optica4, 1086-1091 (2017)..

Tsung, F. S. et al. Generation of ultra-intense single-cycle laser pulses by using photon deceleration.Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA99, 29-32 (2002)..

Gordon, D. F. et al. Asymmetric self-phase modulation and compression of short laser pulses in plasma channels.Phys. Rev. Lett.90, 215001 (2003)..

Nie, Z. et al. Relativistic single-cycle tunable infrared pulses generated from a tailored plasma density structure.Nat. Photonics12, 489-494 (2018)..

Zhu, X. L. et al. Single-cycle terawatt twisted-light pulses at midinfrared wavelengths above 10 µm.Phys. Rev. Appl.12, 054024 (2019)..

Pukhov, A.&Meyer-ter-Vehn, J. Laser wake field acceleration: the highly non-linear broken-wave regime.Appl. Phys. B74, 355-361 (2002)..

Lu, W. et al. A nonlinear theory for multidimensional relativistic plasma wave wakefields.Phys. Plasmas13, 056709 (2006)..

Yi, S. A. et al. Analytic model of electromagnetic fields around a plasma bubble in the blow-out regime.Phys. Plasmas20, 013108 (2013)..

Guénot, D. et al. Relativistic electron beams driven by kHz single-cycle light pulses.Nat. Photonics11, 293-296 (2017)..

Budriūnas, R. et al. 53 W average power CEP-stabilized OPCPA system delivering 5.5 TW few cycle pulses at 1 kHz repetition rate.Opt. Express25, 5797-5806 (2017)..

Jullien, A. et al. Carrier-envelope-phase stable, high-contrast, double chirped-pulse-amplification laser system.Opt. Lett.39, 3774-3777 (2014)..

Böhle, F. et al. Compression of CEP-stable multi-mJ laser pulses down to 4 fs in long hollow fibers.Laser Phys. Lett.11, 095401 (2014)..

Sprangle, P., Esarey, E.&Ting, A. Nonlinear theory of intense laser-plasma interactions.Phys. Rev. Lett.64, 2011-2014 (1990)..

Esarey, E., Ting, A.&Sprangle, P. Frequency shifts induced in laser pulses by plasma waves.Phys. Rev. A42, 3526-3531 (1990)..

Sheng, Z. M. et al. Effect of an electron plasma wave on the propagation of an ultrashort laser pulse.J. Optical Soc. Am. B10, 122-129 (1993)..

Esarey, E., Schroeder, C. B.&Leemans, W. P. Physics of laser-driven plasma-based electron accelerators.Rev. Mod. Phys.81, 1229-1285 (2009)..

Siders, C. W. et al. Laser wakefield excitation and measurement by femtosecond longitudinal interferometry.Phys. Rev. Lett.76, 3570-3573 (1996)..

Marquès, J. R. et al. Temporal and spatial measurements of the electron density perturbation produced in the wake of an ultrashort laser pulse.Phys. Rev. Lett.76, 3566-3569 (1996)..

Kotaki, H. et al. Direct measurement of coherent ultrahigh wakefields excited by intense ultrashort laser pulses in a gas-jet plasma.Phys. Plasmas9, 1392-1400 (2002)..

Arber, T. D. et al. Contemporary particle-in-cell approach to laser-plasma modelling.Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion57, 113001 (2015)..

Geddes, C. G. R. et al. High-quality electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator using plasma-channel guiding.Nature431, 538-541 (2004)..

Mizuta, Y. et al. Splash plasma channels produced by picosecond laser pulses in argon gas for laser wakefield acceleration.Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams15, 121301 (2012)..

浏览量

Downloads

CSCD

文章被引用时，请邮件提醒。

Submit

工具集

关联资源

暂无数据