Numerical simulation of plasma-based raman amplification of laser pulses to petawatt powers

• Autor(a) principal: Trines, R. M. G.
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Outros Autores: Fiuza, F., Fonseca, R. A., Silva, L. O., Bingham, R., Cairns, R. A., Norreys, P.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/public/pub/id/6379; http://hdl.handle.net/10071/9938
• topic: Lasers; optical pulse compression; Raman scattering

Contemporary high-power laser systems make use of solid-state laser technology to reach petawatt pulse powers. The breakdown threshold for optical components in these systems, however, demands beam diameters up to 1 m. Raman amplification of laser beams promises a breakthrough by the use of much smaller amplifying media, i.e., millimeter-diameter-wide plasmas. Through the first large-scale multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations of this process, we have identified the parameter regime where multipetawatt peak laser powers can be reached, while the influence of damaging laser-plasma instabilities is only minor. Snapshots of the probe laser pulse being amplified, generated using state-of-the-art visualization techniques, are presented.