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Register a new userCEP-stable Tunable THz-Emission Originating from Laser-Waveform-Controlled Sub-Cycle Plasma-Electron Bursts
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We study THz-emission from a plasma driven by an incommensurate-frequency two-colour laser field. A semi-classical transient electron current model is derived from a fully quantum-mechanical description of the emission process in terms of sub-cycle field-ionization followed by continuum-continuum electron transitions. For the experiment, a CEP-locked laser and a near-degenerate optical parametric amplifier are used to produce two-colour pulses that consist of the fundamental and its near-half frequency. By choosing two incommensurate frequencies, the frequency of the CEP-stable THz-emission can be continuously tuned into the mid-IR range. This measured frequency dependence of the THz-emission is found to be consistent with the semi-classical transient electron current model, similar to the Brunel mechanism of harmonic generation.
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Sources of intense, ultra-short electromagnetic pulses enable applications such as attosecond pulse generation, control of electron motion in solids and the observation of reaction dynamics at the electronic level. For such applications both high-intensity and carrier envelope phase~(CEP) tunability are beneficial, yet hard to obtain with current methods. In this work we present a new scheme for generation of isolated CEP-tunable intense sub-cycle pulses with central frequencies that range from the midinfrared to the ultraviolet. It utilizes an intense laser pulse which drives a wake in a plasma, co-propagating with a long-wavelength seed pulse. The moving electron density spike of the wake amplifies the seed and forms a sub-cycle pulse. Controlling the CEP of the seed pulse, or the delay between driver and seed leads to CEP-tunability, while frequency tunability can be achieved by adjusting the laser and plasma parameters. Our 2D and 3D Particle-In-Cell simulations predict laser-to-sub-cycle-pulse conversion efficiencies up to 1%, resulting in relativistically intense sub-cycle pulses.
We present an in-depth experimental-computational study of the parameters necessary to optimize a tunable, quasi-monoenergetic, efficient, low-background Compton backscattering (CBS) x-ray source that is based on the self-aligned combination of a laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) and a plasma mirror (PM). The main findings are: (1) an LPA driven in the blowout regime by 30 TW, 30 fs laser pulses producesnot only a high-quality, tunable, quasi-monoenergetic electron beam, but also a high-quality, relativistically intense (a0~1) spent drive pulse that remains stable in profile and intensity over the LPA tuning range. (2) A thin plastic film near the gas jet exit retro-reflects the spent drive pulse efficiently into oncoming electrons to produce CBS x-rays without detectable bremsstrahlung background. Meanwhile anomalous far-field divergence of the retro-reflected light demonstrates relativistic denting of the PM. Exploiting these optimized LPA and PM conditions, we demonstrate quasi-monoenergetic (50% FWHM energy spread), tunable (75 to 200 KeV) CBS x-rays, characteristics previously achieved only on more powerful laser systems by CBS of a split-off, counter-propagating pulse. Moreover, laser-to-x-ray photon conversion efficiency ~6e12 exceeds that of any previous LPA-based quasi-monoenergetic Compton source. Particle-in-cell simulations agree well with the measurements.
Strong-field ionization of polar molecules contains rich dynamical processes such as tunneling, excitation, and Stark shift. These processes occur on a sub-cycle time scale and are difficult to distinguish in ultrafast measurements. Here, with a developed strong-field model considering effects of both Coulomb and permanent dipole, we show that photoelectron momentum distributions (PMDs) in orthogonal two-color laser fields can be utilized to resolve these processes with attosecond-scale resolution. A feature quantity related to the asymmetry in PMDs is obtained, with which the complex electron dynamics of polar molecules in each half laser cycle is characterized and the subtle time difference when electrons escaping from different sides of the polar molecule is identified.
Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs), producing high-quality electron beams, provide an opportunity to reduce the size of free-electron lasers (FELs) to only a few meters. A complete system is proposed here, which is based on FEL technology and consists of an LPA, two undulators, and other magnetic devices. The system is capable to generate carrier-envelope phase stable attosecond pulses with engineered waveform. Pulses with up to~60~nJ energy and 90 to~400~attosecond duration in the 30 to 120~nm wavelength range are predicted by numerical simulation. These pulses can be used to investigate ultrafast field-driven electron dynamics in matter.
The interaction of ultra-intense laser pulses with an underdense plasma is used in laser-plasma acceleration to create compact sources of ultrashort pulses of relativistic electrons and X-rays. The accelerating structure is a plasma wave, or wakefield, that is excited by the laser ponderomotive force, a force that is usually assumed to depend solely on the laser envelope and not on its exact waveform. Here, we use near-single-cycle laser pulses with a controlled carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) to show that the actual waveform of the laser field has a clear impact on the plasma response. We measure relativistic electron beams that are found to be strongly CEP dependent, implying that we achieve waveform control of electron dynamics in underdense laser-plasma interaction. Our results pave the way to high precision, sub-cycle control of electron injection in plasma accelerators, enabling the production of attosecond relativistic electron bunches and X-rays.
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