Interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with an underdense, preformed plasma channel

Author

Malka, V. ; Faure, J. ; Marqués, J.R. ; Amiranoff, F. ; Courtois, C. ; Najmudin, Z. ; Krushelnick, Karl ; Salvati, M.R. ; Dangor, A.E.

Author_Institution

LULI, Ecole Polytech.-Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Palaiseau, France

Volume

28

Issue

4

fYear

2000

fDate

8/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1078

Lastpage

1083

Abstract

We report on experimental results regarding the propagation of ultraintense laser pulses in a preformed plasma channel. In this experiment, the long (4-mm) fully ionized plasma channel created by the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) was measured by interferometry before and after the propagation of the short laser pulse. Forward spectra show a cascade of Raman satellites, which merge with one another when the laser power was increased up to critical power for relativistic self-focusing P_c. The number of filaments measured by interferometry increases when the laser power increases. High conversion efficiency (≈10%) of second harmonic generation was observed in the interaction

Keywords

light interferometry; optical harmonic generation; optical self-focusing; plasma diagnostics; plasma light propagation; relativistic plasmas; superradiance; Raman satellites; amplified spontaneous emission; filaments; high conversion efficiency; interferometry; long fully ionized plasma channel; relativistic self-focusing; second harmonic generation; short laser pulse; ultraintense laser pulses; underdense preformed plasma channel; Interferometry; Optical propagation; Optical pulses; Plasma measurements; Power lasers; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse measurements; Quantum cascade lasers; Satellites; Spontaneous emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/27.893292

Filename

893292