Generating quasi-single-cycle relativistic laser pulses by laser-foil interaction.
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.
Ji
L L
LL
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.
Shen
B F
BF
Zhang
X M
XM
Wang
F C
FC
Jin
Z Y
ZY
Xia
C Q
CQ
Wen
M
M
Wang
W P
WP
Xu
J C
JC
Yu
M Y
MY