The role of transient plasma photonic structures in plasma-based amplifiers

Grégory Vieux; Silvia Cipiccia; Gregor H. Welsh; Samuel R. Yoffe; Felix Gärtner; Matthew P. Tooley; Bernhard Ersfeld; Enrico Brunetti; Bengt Eliasson; Craig Picken; Graeme McKendrick; MinSup Hur; João M. Dias; Thomas Kühl; Götz Lehmann; Dino A. Jaroszynski

doi:10.1038/s42005-022-01109-5

The role of transient plasma photonic structures in plasma-based amplifiers

Grégory Vieux, Silvia Cipiccia, Gregor H. Welsh, Samuel R. Yoffe, Felix Gärtner, Matthew P. Tooley, Bernhard Ersfeld, Enrico Brunetti, Bengt Eliasson, Craig Picken, Graeme McKendrick, MinSup Hur, João M. Dias, Thomas Kühl, Götz Lehmann, Dino A. Jaroszynski

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

High power lasers have become useful scientific tools, but their large size is determined by their low damage-threshold optical media. A more robust and compact medium for amplifying and manipulating intense laser pulses is plasma. Here we demonstrate, experimentally and through simulations, that few-millijoule, ultra-short seed pulses interacting with 3.5-J counter-propagating pump pulses in plasma, stimulate back-scattering of nearly 100 mJ pump energy with high intrinsic efficiency, when detuned from Raman resonance. This is due to scattering off a plasma Bragg grating formed by ballistically evolving ions. Electrons are bunched by the ponderomotive force of the beat-wave, which produces space-charge fields that impart phase correlated momenta to ions. They inertially evolve into a volume Bragg grating that backscatters a segment of the pump pulse. This, ultra-compact, two-step, inertial bunching mechanism can be used to manipulate and compress intense laser pulses. We also observe stimulated Compton (kinetic) and Raman backscattering.

Original language	English (US)
Journal	Communications Physics
Volume	6
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-022-01109-5
State	Published - Jan 13 2023
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-01-18
Acknowledgements: We acknowledge the support of the UK EPSRC (EP/J018171/1 and EP/N028694/1), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 871124 Laserlab-Europe. B.El. acknowledges support from the EPSRC (UK), grant EP/M009386/1. We would like to extend our thanks to the staff at the CLF for their valuable help. Also, the authors would like to thank the OSIRIS consortium (UCLA/IST) for the use of OSIRIS. 1D simulation results have been obtained using the EPSRC-funded ARCHIE-WeSt High-Performance Computer (www.archie-west.ac.uk). For the 2D simulation results, this research used the resources of the Supercomputing Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. This work also used the ARCHER2 UK National Supercomputing Service (https://www.archer2.ac.uk).
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.

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Vieux, G., Cipiccia, S., Welsh, G. H., Yoffe, S. R., Gärtner, F., Tooley, M. P., Ersfeld, B., Brunetti, E., Eliasson, B., Picken, C., McKendrick, G., Hur, M., Dias, J. M., Kühl, T., Lehmann, G., & Jaroszynski, D. A. (2023). The role of transient plasma photonic structures in plasma-based amplifiers. Communications Physics, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-022-01109-5

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title = "The role of transient plasma photonic structures in plasma-based amplifiers",

abstract = "High power lasers have become useful scientific tools, but their large size is determined by their low damage-threshold optical media. A more robust and compact medium for amplifying and manipulating intense laser pulses is plasma. Here we demonstrate, experimentally and through simulations, that few-millijoule, ultra-short seed pulses interacting with 3.5-J counter-propagating pump pulses in plasma, stimulate back-scattering of nearly 100 mJ pump energy with high intrinsic efficiency, when detuned from Raman resonance. This is due to scattering off a plasma Bragg grating formed by ballistically evolving ions. Electrons are bunched by the ponderomotive force of the beat-wave, which produces space-charge fields that impart phase correlated momenta to ions. They inertially evolve into a volume Bragg grating that backscatters a segment of the pump pulse. This, ultra-compact, two-step, inertial bunching mechanism can be used to manipulate and compress intense laser pulses. We also observe stimulated Compton (kinetic) and Raman backscattering.",

author = "Gr{\'e}gory Vieux and Silvia Cipiccia and Welsh, {Gregor H.} and Yoffe, {Samuel R.} and Felix G{\"a}rtner and Tooley, {Matthew P.} and Bernhard Ersfeld and Enrico Brunetti and Bengt Eliasson and Craig Picken and Graeme McKendrick and MinSup Hur and Dias, {Jo{\~a}o M.} and Thomas K{\"u}hl and G{\"o}tz Lehmann and Jaroszynski, {Dino A.}",

note = "KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-01-18 Acknowledgements: We acknowledge the support of the UK EPSRC (EP/J018171/1 and EP/N028694/1), the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 871124 Laserlab-Europe. B.El. acknowledges support from the EPSRC (UK), grant EP/M009386/1. We would like to extend our thanks to the staff at the CLF for their valuable help. Also, the authors would like to thank the OSIRIS consortium (UCLA/IST) for the use of OSIRIS. 1D simulation results have been obtained using the EPSRC-funded ARCHIE-WeSt High-Performance Computer (www.archie-west.ac.uk). For the 2D simulation results, this research used the resources of the Supercomputing Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. This work also used the ARCHER2 UK National Supercomputing Service (https://www.archer2.ac.uk). This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.",

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doi = "10.1038/s42005-022-01109-5",

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T1 - The role of transient plasma photonic structures in plasma-based amplifiers

AU - Vieux, Grégory

AU - Cipiccia, Silvia

AU - Welsh, Gregor H.

AU - Yoffe, Samuel R.

AU - Gärtner, Felix

AU - Tooley, Matthew P.

AU - Ersfeld, Bernhard

AU - Brunetti, Enrico

AU - Eliasson, Bengt

AU - Picken, Craig

AU - McKendrick, Graeme

AU - Hur, MinSup

AU - Dias, João M.

AU - Kühl, Thomas

AU - Lehmann, Götz

AU - Jaroszynski, Dino A.

N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-01-18 Acknowledgements: We acknowledge the support of the UK EPSRC (EP/J018171/1 and EP/N028694/1), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 871124 Laserlab-Europe. B.El. acknowledges support from the EPSRC (UK), grant EP/M009386/1. We would like to extend our thanks to the staff at the CLF for their valuable help. Also, the authors would like to thank the OSIRIS consortium (UCLA/IST) for the use of OSIRIS. 1D simulation results have been obtained using the EPSRC-funded ARCHIE-WeSt High-Performance Computer (www.archie-west.ac.uk). For the 2D simulation results, this research used the resources of the Supercomputing Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. This work also used the ARCHER2 UK National Supercomputing Service (https://www.archer2.ac.uk). This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.

PY - 2023/1/13

Y1 - 2023/1/13

N2 - High power lasers have become useful scientific tools, but their large size is determined by their low damage-threshold optical media. A more robust and compact medium for amplifying and manipulating intense laser pulses is plasma. Here we demonstrate, experimentally and through simulations, that few-millijoule, ultra-short seed pulses interacting with 3.5-J counter-propagating pump pulses in plasma, stimulate back-scattering of nearly 100 mJ pump energy with high intrinsic efficiency, when detuned from Raman resonance. This is due to scattering off a plasma Bragg grating formed by ballistically evolving ions. Electrons are bunched by the ponderomotive force of the beat-wave, which produces space-charge fields that impart phase correlated momenta to ions. They inertially evolve into a volume Bragg grating that backscatters a segment of the pump pulse. This, ultra-compact, two-step, inertial bunching mechanism can be used to manipulate and compress intense laser pulses. We also observe stimulated Compton (kinetic) and Raman backscattering.

AB - High power lasers have become useful scientific tools, but their large size is determined by their low damage-threshold optical media. A more robust and compact medium for amplifying and manipulating intense laser pulses is plasma. Here we demonstrate, experimentally and through simulations, that few-millijoule, ultra-short seed pulses interacting with 3.5-J counter-propagating pump pulses in plasma, stimulate back-scattering of nearly 100 mJ pump energy with high intrinsic efficiency, when detuned from Raman resonance. This is due to scattering off a plasma Bragg grating formed by ballistically evolving ions. Electrons are bunched by the ponderomotive force of the beat-wave, which produces space-charge fields that impart phase correlated momenta to ions. They inertially evolve into a volume Bragg grating that backscatters a segment of the pump pulse. This, ultra-compact, two-step, inertial bunching mechanism can be used to manipulate and compress intense laser pulses. We also observe stimulated Compton (kinetic) and Raman backscattering.

UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/687129

UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-022-01109-5

U2 - 10.1038/s42005-022-01109-5

DO - 10.1038/s42005-022-01109-5

M3 - Article

SN - 2399-3650

VL - 6

JO - Communications Physics

JF - Communications Physics

IS - 1

ER -

The role of transient plasma photonic structures in plasma-based amplifiers

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