Self-aligning concave relativistic plasma mirror with adjustable focus
Abstract
We report an experimental-computational study of the optical properties of plasma mirrors (PMs) at the incident laser frequency when irradiated directly at relativistic intensity (1018<I0<1019 W/cm2) by near-normally incident (4°), high-contrast, 30 fs, 800 nm laser pulses. We find that such relativistic PMs are highly reflective (0.6–0.8) and focus a significant fraction of reflected light to intensity as large as ∼10I0 at distance f as small as ∼25 μm from the PM, provided that pre-pulses do not exceed 1014 W/cm2 prior to ∼20 ps before arrival of the main pulse peak. Particle-in-cell simulations show that focusing results from denting of the reflecting surface by light pressure combined with relativistic transparency and that reflectivity and f can be adjusted by controlling pre-plasma length L over the range 0.5 ≲ L ≲ 3 μm. Pump-probe reflectivity measurements show that the PM's focusing properties evolve on a ps time scale.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2017
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.4973432
Entities
People
- Alexey V Arefiev
- D. J. Stark
- Hai-En Tsai
- Joseph M. Shaw
- Michael Downer
- Rafal Zgadzaj
- Xiaoming Wang
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Department of Energy
- University of Texas at Austin