title: Generating quasi-single-cycle relativistic laser pulses by laser-foil interaction.
abstract: A scheme for producing nearly single-cycle relativistic laser pulses is proposed. When a laser pulse interacts with an overdense thin foil, because of self-consistent nonlinear modulation, the latter will be more transparent to the more intense part of the laser, so that a transmitted pulse can be much shorter than the incident pulse. Using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation and analytical modeling, it is found that a transmitted pulse of duration 4 fs and peak intensity 3 x 10{20} W/cm{2} can be generated from a circularly polarized laser pulse. The intensity of the resulting pulse is only limited by that of the incident pulse, since this scheme involves only laser-plasma interaction.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Post Office Box 800-211, Shanghai 201800, China.
authors.forename: L L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: B F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: X M
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: F C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Z Y
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: C Q
authors.initials: CQ
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: W P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Yu