title: Absorption of ultrashort laser pulses in strongly overdense targets.
abstract: Absorption measurements on solid conducting targets have been performed in s and p polarization with ultrashort, high-contrast Ti:sapphire laser pulses at intensities up to 5x10{16}W/cm{2} and pulse duration of 8 fs. The particular relevance of the reported absorption measurements lies in the fact that the extremely short laser pulse interacts with matter close to solid density during the entire pulse duration. A pronounced increase of absorption for p polarization at increasing angles is observed reaching 77% for an incidence angle of 80 degrees . Simulations performed using a 2D particle in cell code show a very good agreement with the experimental data for a plasma profile of L/lambda approximately 0.01.
authors.affiliation: Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr.1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. mirela.cerchez@uni-duesseldorf.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cerchez
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Osterholz
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Toncian
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Willi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mulser
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ruhl