Generation of high harmonics and attosecond pulses with ultrashort laser pulse filaments and conical waves

Results illustrating the nonlinear dynamics of ultrashort laser pulse filamentation in gases are presented, with particular emphasis on the filament properties useful for developing attosecond light sources. Two aspects of ultrashort pulse filaments are specifically discussed: (i) numerical simulation results on pulse self-compression by filamentation in a gas cell filled with noble gas. Measurements of high harmonics generated by the pulse extracted from the filament allows for the detection of intensity spikes and subcycle pulses generated within the filament. (ii) Simulation results on the spontaneous formation of conical wavepackets during filamentation in gases, which in turn can be used as efficient driving pulses for the generation of high harmonics and isolated attosecond pulses.     

Measurement of the energy penetration depth into solid targets irradiated by ultrashort laser pulses

The energy penetration depth of a short (100 fs) Ti-sapphire laser pulse (0.8 &mgr;m) of intensity 3x10(16) W/cm(2), in solid density materials has been measured. High-Z (BaF2) and low-Z (MgF2) solid layers targets were used. The penetration depth was determined from the measurement of the x-ray emission spectra, as a function of the target thickness. The investigation of these spectra showed that in the low-Z case, solid density material to a depth of 50 nm was heated to a peak electron temperature of approximately 150 eV. For the high-Z material, the penetration depth corresponding to this temperature exceeded 100 nm. This is evidence of a larger heat penetration depth in a high-Z material in comparison to a low-Z material. A model based on electron heat conduction is used to estimate the energy penetration depth. It is suggested that the larger heat penetration in high-Z material is due to heating of the material, caused by the radiation flux, generated by the electron heat conduction.     

Analysis of electromagnetic pulses generated from ultrashort laser irradiation of solid targets at CLAPA

Electromagnetic pulses(EMPs)produced by the interaction of a TW femtosecond laser with solid targets at the Compact Laser Plasma Accelerator(CLAPA)are measured and interpreted.The statistical results confirm that the intensities of the EMPs are closely related to both target material and thickness.The signal of the titanium target is more abundant than that of the copper target with the same thickness,and the intensity of EMP is positively correlated with the target thickness for aluminium foil.With the boosted EMP radiations,the energy of accelerated protons is also simultaneously enhanced.In addition,EMPs emitted from the front of the target exceed those from the rear,which are also pertinent to the specific target position.The resonant waveforms in the target chamber are analyzed using the fast Fourier transform,and the local resonance and the attenuation lead to changes of the frequency spectra of EMPs with variation of detecting positions,which is well supported by the modeling results.The findings are beneficial to gaining insight into the mechanism of EMP propagation in a typical target chamber and providing more information for EMP shielding design.     

Absorption of ultrashort laser pulses in strongly overdense targets

Absorption measurements on solid conducting targets have been performed in s and p polarization with ultrashort, high-contrast Ti:sapphire laser pulses at intensities up to 5x10{16}W/cm{2} and pulse duration of 8 fs. The particular relevance of the reported absorption measurements lies in the fact that the extremely short laser pulse interacts with matter close to solid density during the entire pulse duration. A pronounced increase of absorption for p polarization at increasing angles is observed reaching 77% for an incidence angle of 80 degrees . Simulations performed using a 2D particle in cell code show a very good agreement with the experimental data for a plasma profile of L/lambda approximately 0.01.     

超短脉冲强激光与固体靶作用产生的高次谐波红移

用一维粒子模拟程序研究了超短脉冲强激光与超临界密度等离子体平板作用产生的高次谐波。分析了振荡镜面模型所不能解释的伴随高次谐波出现的频率红移现象。通常激光与固体靶作用中的高次谐波是由于激光从振荡靶面的反射产生的.除此之外，相对论光强的激光与固体靶作用还应考虑光压对靶的烧蚀推进作用，这时激光相当于从一个移动的振荡靶面反射，所以产生了带有红移的高次谐波. 关键词： 红移 超短脉冲强激光 高次谐波 粒子模拟     

Microablation with ultrashort laser pulses

This paper reports the micromachining results of different materials (Al, Si, InP and fused silica) using a Ti : sapphire laser at the wavelength of 800 and 267 nm with variable pulse lengths in the range from 100 fs to 10 ps. The hole arrays with a diameter up to a few μm through microdrilling are presented. We discussed how an effective suppression of the thermal diffusion inside the ablated materials and an effective microablation could be realized. If the laser fluence is taken only slightly above the threshold, a hole array can be drilled with diameters even smaller than the wavelength of the laser. Some examples are presented in the paper.     

On the interaction of femtosecond laser pulses with cluster targets

The heating of clusters by femtosecond laser pulses is studied theoretically and experimentally. Both the formation of a cluster target and the results of experimental studies of the cluster plasma by the methods of X-ray emission spectroscopy are considered. A numerical model of cluster formation in a supersonic gas jet is proposed. It is shown that detailed studies of two-phase gas-dynamic processes in a nozzle forming the jet give the spatial distributions of all parameters required for the correct calculation of the cluster heating by short laser pulses. Calculations of nozzles of different configurations show that in a number of cases an almost homogeneous cluster target can be formed, whereas in other cases the distributions of parameters prove to be not only inhomogeneous but also even nonmonotonic. A simple physical model of the plasma production by a femtosecond laser pulse and a picosecond prepulse is proposed. It is shown that a comparison of X-ray spectra with detailed calculations of the ion kinetics makes it possible to determine the main parameters of the plasma being produced.     

Generation of ultrashort pulses in solid media with a large gain coefficient

Lebedev Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 369–379, March, 1989.     

超短超强激光与固体靶相互作用中背表面光发射的实验研究

从金属箔背表面测量了超热电子穿越固体靶产生的光发射.光发射积分成像图案呈圆环状，在圆环边缘附近出现局部化明亮光信号确定为光学渡越辐射；光发射光谱在300—500nm之间出现一系列非周期锐利尖峰，在400nm（2ω）附近的尖峰较明显，这个光发射取决于v×B加 热机制产生的超热电子束的微束团引起的相干渡越辐射，(v为电子电度，B为磁场强度)，光 强随靶厚度的增加而减小. 关键词： 超热电子 光发射 光学渡越辐射 v×B加热机制 相干渡越辐射     

Generation of the fifth and sixth harmonics of iodine laser pulses

High-power coherent radiation at 263 nm and 219 nm was generated by converting iodine laser pulses (λ = 1.315 μm) into fifth- and sixth-harmonic radiation. For 5ω-generation 3ω and 2ω were mixed in a KDP crystal. 6ω was produced by second-harmonic conversion of 3ω radiation in a KPB crystal.     

Modeling cluster jets as targets for high-power ultrashort laser pulses

A hydrodynamic model is formulated that describes the formation of clusters in atomic gas jets expanding into vacuum, which are used as laser plasma targets. Detailed model calculations performed for an argon gas jet describe spatial distributions of the density of gas and cluster phases formed in the Laval nozzle at room temperature in a broad range of entrance gas pressures. The cluster density distribution is significantly inhomogeneous. The cluster distribution features revealed by the model calculations were qualitatively confirmed by the X-ray spectroscopic measurements of the spatial distribution of emission from the plasma created in the jet tar-gets by high-power ultrashort laser pulses.     

Reemission spectra and interference effects at the interaction of multiatomic targets with ultrashort electromagnetic pulses

The processes of reemission of ultrashort electromagnetic pulses by linear chains consisting of isolated multielectron atoms have been considered. The developed method makes it possible to accurately take into account the spatial inhomogeneity of the field of an ultrashort pulse and the momenta of photons in reemission processes. The angular distributions of reemission spectra have been obtained for an arbitrary number of atoms in a chain. It has been shown that the interference of the photon emission amplitudes leads to the appearance of characteristic “diffraction” maxima. The results allow standard generalization to the cases of rescattering from two-dimensional (graphene-like) and three-dimensional lattices, as well as to the case of the inclusion of thermal vibrations of the atoms of lattices.     

Micromachining of quartz with ultrashort laser pulses

Received: 6 January 1997/Accepted: 1 April 1997     

Generation of monoenergetic ultrashort electron pulses from a fs laser plasma

Ultrashort high-energy electron beams are generated by focusing fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses on a thin metal tape at normal incidence. At laser intensities above 10¹⁶ W/cm² , the fs laser plasma ejects copious amounts of electrons in a direction parallel to the target surface. These electrons are directly detected by means of a backside illuminated X-ray CCD, and their energy spectrum is determined with an electrostatic analyzer. The electrons were observed for two laser polarization directions, parallel and perpendicular to the observation direction. At the maximum applied intensity of 2×10¹⁷ W/cm², the energy distribution peaks at around 35 keV with a hot tail detectable up to about 300 keV. The number of electrons per shot at 35 keV is about 5×10⁸ per sterad per keV. Quasi-monoenergetic electron pulses with a relative energy spread of 1% were produced by using a 50-m slit in the beam path after the analyzer. This approach offers great potential for time-resolved studies of plasma, liquid, and surface structures with atomic-scale spatial resolution. PACS 41.75.Fr; 52.38.Kd; 52.70.Nc     

Study of opto-mechanical characteristics of interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with polymer materials

The opto-mechanical characteristics, such as the specific mechanical recoil momentum, the specific impulse, and the energy efficiency, of the laser ablation of flat polymer targets ((C₂F₄) _n , (CH₂O) _n ) have been determined experimentally for the first time for the case of excitation with femtosecond pulses (τ ∼ 45–70 fs) of UV-IR (λ ∼ 266, 400, 800 nm) laser radiation (I ₀ up to 10¹⁵ W/cm²) under normal atmospheric and vacuum (p ∼ 10⁻⁴ mbar) conditions. The efficiency of mechanical recoil momentum generation is analyzed for various regimes of the laser irradiation.     

Generation and detection of superstrong shock waves during ablation of an aluminum surface by intense femtosecond laser pulses

Superstrong shock waves of multimegabar level generated during ablation of an aluminum surface by intense (<1 PW/cm²) femtosecond laser pulses have been detected by observing the propagation of a shock wave in air from the ablated surface to a broadband piezoelectric receiver. The estimated initial pressure and velocity of the shock wave (ablation plume) agree well with data obtained earlier by various methods for shock waves propagating inside ablated targets.     

Measurement of ultrashort laser pulses

A proposal for measuring the pulse shape of ultrashort laser pulses is described. The proposed method consists of a Gamo triple intensity-interferometer to measure the triple-correlation function of the light pulses. A subsequent signal processing algorithm is used to reconstruct the true shape of the light pulses out of their triple-correlation function. The suggested method is quite insensitive to noise, as shown by means of computer simulations.     

Generation of hard x rays by femtosecond laser pulse interaction with solid targets in atmosphere

X ray radiation as high as 50 keV, including K(α) of Ba and Mo, have been observed from a solid target during the interaction of low energy ~0.65 mJ, 1 kHz 40 femtosecond laser pulses focused in air at atmospheric pressure. Energetic electrons generating such x rays are possibly produced when the field strength in laser pulse wake exceeds the runaway threshold in air. Two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that include optical field ionization of air and elastic collisions support this mechanism.     

五阶非线性对啁啾超短脉冲间相互作用的影响

基于包含五次复系数的高阶Ginzburg Landau方程为模型,采用分步傅里叶方法数值研究了啁啾类超短脉冲间的相互作用。结果表明:相邻孤子之间的相互作用对五阶非线性效应非常敏感,即使参数改变很小的值,也会改变其传输特性。适当地选择五阶非线性参数值,能够很好地抑制孤子间的相互作用,提高光纤传输的比特率。当相邻孤子的初始间距为6.8,五阶非线性参数值取-0.001时,可以实现2个孤子长距离的保型传输。最后讨论了五阶非线性作用下多孤子之间的相互作用及抑制。