Dephasing time of a positron accelerated by a laser pulse

The dephasing time of a positron in the total field associated with a laser pulse in a plasma J28is studied numerically. It is shown that the dynamics of the positron is quite different from that of an electron due to the electrostatic potential in the body of the pulse. The dephasing time of the positron increases with the pulse length and decreases with the pulse intensity nonlinearly. In the long pulse case (L》λ_p) the dephasing time is proportional to the pulse length. These results provide a scientific basis for experiments to observe the positron acceleration scheme, and may be important to the physics of laser-article interactions in multi-component plasmas.     

X-ray photon-counting detector based on a micro-channel plate for pulsar navigation

The pulse time of arrival (TOA) is a determining parameter for accurate timing and positioning in X-ray pulsar navigation. The pulse TOA can be calculated by comparing the measured arrival time with the predicted arrival time of the X-ray pulse for pulsar. In this study, in order to research the measurement of pulse arrival time, an experimental system is set up. The experimental system comprises a simulator of the X-ray pulsar, an X-ray detector, a time-measurement system, and a data-processing system. An X-ray detector base is proposed on the basis of the micro-channel plate (MCP), which is sensitive to soft X-ray in the 1–10 keV band. The MCP-based detector, the structure and principle of the experimental system, and results of the pulse profile are described in detail. In addition, a discussion of the effects of different X-ray pulse periods and the quantum efficiency of the detector on pulse-profile signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is presented. Experimental results reveal that the SNR of the measured pulse profile becomes enhanced as the quantum efficiency of the detector increases. The SNR of the pulse profile is higher when the period of the pulse is smaller at the same integral.     

Trigger and control entanglement by atoms with different interaction times

The generation of the entanglement between two two-level atoms interacting with the third atom driven by white noise is investigated when the coupling between atoms is modulated by a pulse function. This paper finds that the initial triggering time and the width of the pulse can generate a peak in the entanglement. There is an optimal width of the pulse for which the entanglement can reach a maximum. The asymmetry of the coupling between atoms can generate different entanglement in the system. The multiple triggers can generate multiple peaks in the entanglement. The separation between two peaks is increased as the width of the pulse is increased.     

Pulse chirping effect on controlling the transverse cavity oscillations in nonlinear bubble regime

The propagation of an intense laser pulse in an under-dense plasma induces a plasma wake that is suitable for the acceleration of electrons to relativistic energies. For an ultra-intense laser pulse which has a longitudinal size shorter than the plasma wavelength, λp, instead of a periodic plasma wave, a cavity free from cold plasma electrons, called a bubble, is formed behind the laser pulse. An intense charge separation electric field inside the moving bubble can capture the electrons at the base of the bubble and accelerate them with a narrow energy spread. In the nonlinear bubble regime, due to localized depletion at the front of the pulse during its propagation through the plasma, the phase shift between carrier waves and pulse envelope plays an important role in plasma response. The carrier–envelope phase(CEP) breaks down the symmetric transverse ponderomotive force of the laser pulse that makes the bubble structure unstable. Our studies using a series of two-dimensional(2D) particle-in-cell(PIC) simulations show that the frequency-chirped laser pulses are more effective in controlling the pulse depletion rate and consequently the effect of the CEP in the bubble regime. The results indicate that the utilization of a positively chirped laser pulse leads to an increase in rate of erosion of the leading edge of the pulse that rapidly results in the formation of a steep intensity gradient at the front of the pulse. A more unstable bubble structure, the self-injections in different positions, and high dark current are the results of using a positively chirped laser pulse. For a negatively chirped laser pulse, the pulse depletion process is compensated during the propagation of the pulse in plasma in such a way that results in a more stable bubble shape and therefore, a localized electron bunch is produced during the acceleration process. As a result, by the proper choice of chirping, one can tune the number of self-injected electrons, the size of accelerated bunch and its energy spectrum to the values required for practical applications.     

Femtosecond pulses cleaning by transient-grating process in Kerr-optical media

We use a transient-grating (TG) process in a Kerr bulk medium to clean a femtosecond laser pulse. Using the technique, the temporal contrast of the generated TG signal is improved by more than two orders of magnitude in comparison with the incident pulse in a 0.5-mm-thick fused silica plate. The laser spectrum is smoothed and broadened, and the pulse duration is shortened simultaneously. We expect to extend this technique to a clean pulse with broadband spectral bandwidth at a wide spectral range because it is a phase-matched process.     

Ionisation of Rydberg hydrogen atom near a metal surface by short pulse laser

In the ionisation of Rydberg hydrogen atoms near a metal surface,the electron will escape from the nucleus and arrive at the detector in a time sequence.This probability flux train relies on the initial electron wave packet irradiated by the laser pulse.For simplicity,the laser pulse is usually simplified to a delta function in energy domain,resulting in a sharp initial arrival time with an exponentially decaying tail at the detector.Actually and semiclassically,the initial outgoing wave should be modeled as an ensemble of trajectories propagating away from the atomic core in all directions with a range of launch times and a range of energies.In this case,each pulse in the pulse train is averaged out rather than a sharp profile.We examine how energy and time averaging of the electron wave packet affects the resolution of escaping electron pulses and study the energy dependence of the arrival time for each pulse in the ionisation train.An optimization condition for the laser pulse shape to generate narrow ionisation electron pulse in the train is obtained.The ionisation rates with various excitation energy are calculated also,which show the excitation to higher N Rydberg states will narrow the electron pulse as well.     

Pulse collapse and blue-shifted enhanced supercontinuum in a photonic crystal fiber

The blue-shifted supercontinuum generation in a photonic crystal fiber pumped by high peak power femtosecond pulses with a wavelength located in the anomalous dispersion region is investigated experimentally and numerically.The formation of a blue-shifted enhanced supercontinuum due to the pulse collapse is demonstrated.The process of the pulse collapse is measured by using the grating-eliminated no-nonsense observation of ultrafast incident laser light e-fields technique(GRENOUILLE).Numerical simulations in spectral and temporal domains are conducted.The data from the numerical simulations are in good agreement with the experimental results.Our experimental results and numerical simulations show that pulse collapse is the determining factor in the generation of a blue-shifted supercontinuum.     

High-Energy Rectangular Pulse Dissipative Soliton Generation in a Long-Cavity Sigma-Shaped Configuration Mode-Locked Fiber Laser

The high-energy rectangular pulse dissipative soliton （DS） is achieved in a long-cavity sigma-shaped configuration erbium-doped fiber laser. A long fiber is inserted in the linear arm of the sigma-shaped configuration to extend the resonator length twice, which effectively improves the pulse energy. The nonlinear polarization rotation technique is employed to realize the mode-locked state. Stable rectangular pulses with pulse energy of 421.22 nJ are obtained at the pump power of 620mW. To the best of our knowledge, this high pulse energy is a new record of the rectangular pulse mode-locked DS fiber lasers.     

Amplified spontaneous emission contrast of CPA laser

The influence on the level of amplified spontaneous emission （ASE） contrast resulting from the different seed pulse energies has been experimentally studied in a 10-TW-level femtosecond Ti：sapphire chirped pulse amplification laser. It is found that, with the seed pulse energy increasing, the ASE pedestal is suppressed more efficiently, and the ASE contrast is improved with a saturable tendency. The measurement of -2×10^-8 ASE contrast in the range of more than 50 ps before the main pulse is achieved in the laser.     

Theory of noise in a kilo-Hz cascaded high-energy Yb-doped nanosecond pulsed fiber amplifier

A theoretical analysis of noise in a high-power cascaded fiber amplifier is presented. Unlike the noise theory in low power communication, the noise of a high power system is redefined as the leaked output energy between pulses with coherent beat noise uncounted. This definition is more appropriate for high power usage in which the pulse energy receives more attention than the pulse shape integrity. Then the low power pre-amplifying stages are considered as linear amplification and analyzed by linear theory. In the high-power amplification stages, the inversion is assumed to recover linearly in the time interval between pulses. The time shape of the output pulse is different from that of the input signal because of different gains at the front and back ends of the pulse. Then, a criterion is provided to distinguish the nonlinear and linear amplifications based on the signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） analysis. Then, an experiment that shows that the output SNR actually drops off in nonlinear amplification is performed. The change in the noise factor can be well evaluated by pulse shape distortion.     

Interaction of a parabolic-shaped pulse pair in a passively mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser

We numerically investigate the formation and interaction of a parabolic-shaped pulse pair in a passively mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser. Based on a lumped model, the parabolic-shaped pulse pair is obtained by controlling the intercavity average dispersion and gain saturation energy, Moreover, pulse repulsive and attractive motion are also achieved with different pulse separations. Simulation results show that the phase shift plays an important role in pulse interaction, and the interaction is determined by the inter-cavity average dispersion and gain saturation energy, i.e., the strength of the interaction is proportional to the gain saturation energy, a stronger gain saturation energy will result in a higher interaction intensity. On the contrary, the increase of the inter-cavity dispersion will counterbalance some interaction force. The results also show that the interaction of a parabolic-shaped pulse pair has a larger interaction distance compared to conventional solitons.     

Producing High Intense Attosecond Pulse Train by Interaction of Three-Color Pulse and Overdense Plasma

Amplifying the attosecond pulse by the chirp pulse amplification method is impossible. Furthermore, the intensity of attosecond pulse is low in the interaction of laser pulse and underdense plasma. This motivates us to propose using a multi-color pulse to produce the high intense attosecond pulse. In the present study; the relativistic interaction of a three-color linearly-polarized laser-pulse with highly overdense plasma is studied. We show that the combination of ω_1, ω_2 and ω_3 frequencies decreases the instance full width at half maximum reflected attosecond pulse train from the overdense plasma surface. Moreover,we show that the three-color pulse increases the intensity of generated harmonics, which is explained by the relativistic oscillating mirror model. The obtained results demonstrate that if the three-color laser pulse interacts with overdense plasma, it will enhance two orders of magnitude of intensity of ultra short attosecond pulses in comparison with monochromatic pulse.     

Generation of a Super Strong Attosecond Pulse from an Atomic Superposition State Irradiated by a Shape-Optimized Short Pulse

Using a linearly polarized, phase-stabilized 3-fs driving pulse of 800 nm central wavelength shape-optimized on its＇ascending edge by its an amplitude-reduced pulse irradiating on a superposition state of the helium atom, we demonstrate theoretically the generation of a super strong isolated 176-attosecond pulse in the spectral region of 93-124 eV. The unusually high intensity of this attosecond pulse is marked by the Rabi-like oscillations emerging in the time-dependent populations of the ground state and the continuum during the occurrence of the electron recombination, which is for the first time observed in this work.     

Generation of an isolated sub-30 attosecond pulse in a two-color laser field and a static electric field

We theoretically investigate high-order harmonic generation(HHG) from a helium ion model in a two-color laser field,which is synthesized by a fundamental pulse and its second harmonic pulse.It is shown that a supercontinuum spectrum can be generated in the two-color field.However,the spectral intensity is very low,limiting the application of the generated attosecond(as) pulse.By adding a static electric field to the synthesized two-color field,not only is the ionization yield of electrons contributing to the harmonic emission remarkably increased,but also the quantum paths of the HHG can be significantly modulated.As a result,the extension and enhancement of the supercontinuum spectrum are achieved,producing an intense isolated 26-as pulse with a bandwidth of about 170.5 eV.In particular,we also analyse the influence of the laser parameters on the ultrabroad supercontinuum spectrum and isolated sub-30-as pulse generation.     

Enhanced electron–positron pair production by frequency chirping in one-and two-color laser pulse fields

Enhanced electron–positron pair production by frequency chirping in one- and two-color laser pulse fields is investigated by solving the quantum Vlasov equation. A small frequency chirp shifts the momentum spectrum along the momentum axis. The positive and negative frequency chirp parameters play the same role in increasing the pair number density. The sign change of the frequency chirp parameter at the moment t = 0 leads the pulse shape and momentum spectrum to be symmetric, and the number density to be increased. The number density of produced pairs in the two-color pulse field is much higher than that in the one-color pulse field and the larger frequency chirp pulse field dominates more strongly. In the two-color pulse fields, the relation between the frequency ratio of two colors and the number density is not sensitive to the parameters of small frequency chirp added in either a low frequency strong field or a high frequency weak field but sensitive to the parameters of large frequency chirp added in a high frequency weak field.     

Short-pulse high-power microwave breakdown at high pressures

The fluid model is proposed to investigate the gas breakdown driven by a short-pulse(such as a Gaussian pulse) highpower microwave at high pressures.However,the fluid model requires specification of the electron energy distribution function(EEDF);the common assumption of a Maxwellian EEDF can result in the inaccurate breakdown prediction when the electrons are not in equilibrium.We confirm that the influence of the incident pulse shape on the EEDF is tiny at high pressures by using the particle-in-cell Monte Carlo collision(PIC-MCC) model.As a result,the EEDF for a rectangular microwave pulse directly derived from the Boltzmann equation solver Bolsig+ is introduced into the fluid model for predicting the breakdown threshold of the non-rectangular pulse over a wide range of pressures,and the obtained results are very well matched with those of the PIC-MCC simulations.The time evolution of a non-rectangular pulse breakdown in gas,obtained by the fluid model with the EEDF from Bolsig+,is presented and analyzed at different pressures.In addition,the effect of the incident pulse shape on the gas breakdown is discussed.     

High energy and long pulse generation with high-birefringence photonic crystal fibre and laser-diode pumped regenerative amplifier

We report on the generation of a high energy and long pulse for pumping optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) by a high-birefringence photonic crystal fibre (HB-PCF) and a laser-diode-pumped regenerative chirped pulse amplifier. Using the femtosecond pump pulse centred at 815~nm, a 1064~nm soliton pulse is produced in the HB-PCF. After injecting it into an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier with the glass etalons, a narrow-band amplified pulse with an energy of $\sim $4~mJ and a duration of 235 ps is achieved at a repetition rate of 10~Hz, which is suitable for being used as a pump source in the 800~nm OPCPA system.     

Effect of initial chirp on near-infrared supercontinuum generation by a nanosecond pulse in a nonlinear fiber amplifier

Theoretical and experimental research on the effect of initial chirp on near-infrared supercontinuum generation by a nanosecond pulse in a nonlinear fiber amplifier is carded out. The complex Ginzburg-Landau equation is used to simulate the propagation of the pulse in the fiber amplifier and the results show that pulses with negative initial chirp produce the widest supercontinuum and pulses with positive initial chirp produce the narrowest supercontinuum when the central wavelength of the pump lies in the normal dispersion region of the gain fiber. A self-made line width narrowing system is utilized to control the initial chirp of the nanosecond pump pulse and a four-stage master oscillator power amplifier configuration is adopted to produce a high power near-infrared suppercontinuum. The experimental results are in good agreement with simulations which can provide some guidance on further optimization of the system in future work.     

Angular distributions of CH3I fragment ions under the irradiation of a single pulse and trains of ultrashort laser pulses

The angular distribution of CH3I is investigated experimentally using a single Fourier transform-limited laser pulse and a pulse train, where a 90-fs 800-nm linearly polarized laser field with a moderate intensity of 2.8×1013 W/cm2 is used. The dynamic alignment is demonstrated in a single pulse experiment. Moreover, a pulse train is used to optimize the molecular alignment, and the alignment degree is almost identical to that with the single pulse. The results are analysed by using chirped femtosecond laser pulses, and it demonstrates that the structure of pulse train rather than its effective duration is crucial to the molecular alignment.     

Electron Acceleration and Bunch Generation by Intense Femtosecond Laser Pulse in Preplasma of a Target

We present analytical studies of electron acceleration in the low-density preplasma of a thin solid target by an intense femtosecond laser pulse. Electrons in the preplasma are trapped and accelerated by the ponderomotive force as well as the wake field. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that when the laser pulse is stopped by the target, electrons trapped in the laser pules can be extracted and move forward inertially. The energetic electron bunch in the bubble is unaffected by the reflected pulse and passes through the target with small energy spread and emittance. There is an optimal preplasma density for the generation of the monoenergetic electron bunch if a laser pulse is given. The maximum electron energy is inverse proportion to the preplasma density.