Compact Ultraintense Femtosecond Laser via Raman Amplifier and Compressor in Plasma

Abstract

The main objective of this project was to conduct experimental and theoretical research to find conditions leading to higher, than previously obtained efficiency η of transfer the pump energy into the short seed beam in plasma of Stimulated Raman Back-Scattering (SRBS). We have demonstrated very large amplification and compression in our earlier SRBS plasma. However, the efficiency η was much too low to reach very high intensity of the output beam in the focal spot. Recently, by solving a very difficult technical SRBS’ problem, namely, the creation of very reproducible and much larger diameter plasma channels than in our earlier research, we propose a new approach to obtain higher efficiency η. The crucial new result was a very reproducible, low noise amplified seed in the larger diameter of the plasma channel leading to the higher efficiency. Using this new setup and very encouraging results about increase efficiency continuing this approach in the future the efficiency is expect to reach the range of η ≈15 - 20 % required to develop practical SRBS plasma laser. Intellectual Merit: The model for the present project was created by our earlier SRBS experiments. The main objective of those experiments was to amplify and compressmore » the seed pulses in a plasma . The experiments demonstrated an unprecedented large pulse intensity amplification of 20,000 in system of 2-passes in ~2mm long plasma, and the seed pulse compression from 550fsec down to ~50fsec. The pump and seed beams in the present project have diameters of ~0.2–0.25mm each, propagating in ~0.35 - 0.45mm diameter and ~2-2.5mm long plasma channels (optimal length for our SRBS experiment) with input pump and seed intensities of 2x1014 and 3x1013 W/cm2, respectively. Such an SRBS system design was “prescribed” by computer simulations, which predict elimination of the SRBS “ saturation” for a such relatively short plasma channel. Plasma channels has been created by combining shorter (200psec) and longer (5nsec) laser pulses using an axicon lens for shorter pulse and spherical lens for longer pulse, a unique procedure we have developed for SRBS experiments.« less