Abstract
Efficient coupling of intense laser pulses to solid-density matter is critical to many applications including ion acceleration for cancer therapy. At relativistic intensities, the focus has been mainly on investigating various laser beams irradiating initially overdense flat interfaces with little or no control over the interaction. Here, we propose a novel approach that leverages recent advancements in 3D direct laser writing (DLW) of materials and high contrast lasers to manipulate the laser-matter interactions on the micro-scales. We demonstrate, via simulations, that usable intensities ≥1023 Wcm−2 could be achieved with current tabletop lasers coupled to micro-engineered plasma lenses. We show that these plasma optical elements act as a lens to focus laser light. These results open new paths to engineering light-matter interactions at ultra-relativistic intensities.
Highlights
The manipulation of laser light has led to many spectacular advances in medicine, telecommunication[1], remote sensing[2], and in probing the fundamental interaction of light with matter at the atomic scales[3]
To get insight into the interaction of intense light with micro-tubes, we have carried out 3D PIC simulations of a high-contrast laser pulse with a single tube (Fig. 1b)
A laser beam with a duration of 40 fs and intensity of 5.3 × 1021 Wcm−2 enters the target via a micro-tube of 4.8 μm diameter. Such laser pulses are available at current laser facilities[51]
Summary
The manipulation of laser light has led to many spectacular advances in medicine, telecommunication[1], remote sensing[2], and in probing the fundamental interaction of light with matter at the atomic scales[3]. Further intensity increase moves the interaction into the relativistic regime[7] (>1018 Wcm−2), where many exotic phenomena have been predicted and experimentally observed in laser-matter interactions These include the production of relativistic electrons[8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17], the acceleration of protons and heavy ions[18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25], the synthesis of attosecond pulses from plasma-induced harmonics[26,27,28,29,30], and the creation of electron-positron jets[31]. The generation of secondary electron, proton, and γ -ray beams are enhanced
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