Generation of high-power few-cycle lasers via Brillouin-based plasma amplification

Abstract

Strong coupling stimulated Brillouin backscattering (sc-SBS) in plasma is potentially an efficient method of amplifying laser pulses to reach exawatt powers. Here, we report on a new regime of brillouin-based plasma amplification, producing an amplified pulse with a duration of 5 fs and unfocused intensity of 6 × 1017 W/cm2. The results are obtained from 2D particle-in-cell simulations, using two circularly polarized pump and seed pulse with Gaussian transverse profile, both at an intensity of 2.74 × 1016 W/cm2, counter-propagating in a 0.3nc plasma. The significant compression of amplified seed is achieved as a result of sc-SBS amplification as well as additional compression by the interplay between self-phase modulation and negative group delay dispersion. We show that the amplified seed retains high beam qualities since the filamentation can be prevented due to the fast compression. This scheme may pave the way for few-cycle laser pulses to reach exawatt or even zetawatt regime.