The development of next-generation laser optics can be guided by studies looking to improve the laser-induced damage threshold of highly-reflective interference coatings. We model intense few-cycle pulses interacting with multilayer HfO2/SiO2 dielectric interference coatings using fully three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to which we have added a Keldysh model for photoionization and a dielectric model to include refractive properties of the materials. We explore the reflection, transmission, and absorption of the laser pulses. We use the predicted excited electron density and energy density to estimate damage thresholds for these optics.
This research was funded by DOE STTR grant no. DE-SC0019900.
In many countries around the world, ultra-intense laser facilities are being built. These state-of-the-art lasers are
intended for innovative medical and technological applications, as well as for basic experiments at the frontiers
of fundamental science. Laser particle acceleration is a promising new endeavor. Recently developed schemes using radially polarized beams could help in reaching unprecedentedly short electron pulse durations, well in the attosecond range and potentially in the subattosecond range.
We show how electrons could be accelerated from rest to multi-MeV energies within a few millimeters by the longitudinal electric field of a pulsed transverse magnetic laser beam of multiterawatt power. The use of an ultrafast laser beam and a compact initial electron cloud forces the particles to effectively interact with a single half-cycle of the laser field. Numerical simulations of the time-dependent three-dimensional Maxwell-Lorentz equations show that relativistic attosecond electron pulses could thus be produced. Preliminary theoretical investigations predict that electron pulses of zeptosecond duration could be generated with multipetawatt laser power.
TMop free-space laser beams (radially polarized and transverse magnetic Laguerre-Gauss beams) have an on-axis longitudinal electric field that has the prerequisites needed to achieve up-to-GeV electron acceleration in a diffraction-limited interaction. We describe how highly relativistic electrons can be synchronously accelerated. Under extreme conditions the energy gain experienced by the accelerated electrons can be well in the multi-GeV range.
We establish the distinction between free-space Bessel beams (the so-called `diffraction-free beams') and the guided modes of circular cylindrical geometry whose radial profiles take the form of Bessel functions. We explain why these two types of optical beams have different dispersion relations. A free-space Bessel beam can be produced by illuminating a mask with a single transparent ring placed at the focus of a lens; such a beam has group and phase velocities that are equal and larger than c, the speed of light in vacuo. We examine the propagation of polychromatic Bessel beams that can be produced when short pulses are illuminating a mask with one transmission ring; spectral modulation, temporal breakup and loss of fringe visibility can take place under such circumstances. Polychromatic Bessel beams are shown to constitute wave packets whose spatio-temporal field distributions are invariant upon propagation in vacuo; these wave packets have the shape of a double cone, and are sometimes called `X-pulses'. We present experimental evidence of loss of fringe visibility when very short pulses are used to generate such conical wave packets. The coherent superposition of multiple monochromatic Bessel beams can lead to a self-imaging phenomenon along the propagation axis when the spatial frequencies of the Bessel beams in the radial direction are properly selected. We specify the conditions for temporal self-imaging when a polychromatic single Bessel beam propagates in a dispersive medium. Spatio-temporal self-imaging is also possible when multiple polychromatic Bessel beams are propagated in a dispersive medium. We also examine the longitudinal fields associated to Bessel beams and conical wavepackets, and evaluate their suitability for partial acceleration.
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