Photon deceleration in plasma wakes generates single-cycle relativistic tunable infrared pulses
Abstract
Availability of relativistically intense, single-cycle, tunable infrared sources will open up new areas of relativistic nonlinear optics of plasmas, impulse IR spectroscopy and pump-probe experiments in the molecular fingerprint region. However, generation of such pulses is still a challenge by current methods. Recently, it has been proposed that time dependent refractive index associated with laser-produced nonlinear wakes in a suitably designed plasma density structure rapidly frequency down-converts photons. The longest wavelength photons slip backwards relative to the evolving laser pulse to form a single-cycle pulse within the nearly evacuated wake cavity. This process is called photon deceleration. Here, we demonstrate this scheme for generating high-power (~100 GW), near single-cycle, wavelength tunable (3–20 µm), infrared pulses using an 810 nm drive laser by tuning the density profile of the plasma. We also demonstrate that these pulses can be used to in-situ probe the transient and nonlinear wakes themselves.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 03, 2020
- Source ID
- 10.1038/s41467-020-16541-w
Entities
People
- Chandrashekhar J. Joshi
- Chaojie Zhang
- Chih-Hao Pai
- Hsu-Hsin Chu
- Jianfei Hua
- Jie Zhang
- Jyhpyng Wang
- Qianqian Su
- Shuang Liu
- Warren B. Mori
- Wei Lu
- Xiaonan Ning
- Yipeng Wu
- Yue Ma
- Yunxiao He
- Zan Nie
- Zhi Cheng
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Science and Technology Council
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Department of Energy