- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Spectral detuning of relativistic surface harmonics

Elkana Porat1,2,3,*, Itamar Cohen1,2, Assaf Levanon1,2, and Ishay Pomerantz1,2

  • 1The School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
  • 2Center for Light-Matter Interaction, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
  • 3Department of Applied Physics, Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Yavne 81800, Israel

  • *elkanaporat@mail.tau.ac.il
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 4, L022036 – Published 16 May, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L022036

Abstract

Relativistic surface harmonics driven by high-intensity lasers are considered a promising future light source, as their bandwidth and brightness are scalable with the driving laser power. Typically, the emission frequencies of these sources are limited to integer multiples of the laser fundamental frequency. In this Letter, we describe how the generation dynamics of these harmonics may enable spectral detuning of their frequencies. A dent in the plasma surface driven by the radiation pressure of the laser field grows during the interaction and varies the harmonic beam divergence. When a temporal chirp is added to the driving laser pulse, different instantaneous fundamental frequencies drive the harmonic beam to different cone angles, resulting in an overall spectral detuning of the high harmonics beam. We present experimental measurements of the dependence of the spectral detuning on the temporal chirp of the driving pulse. We show how these results are reproduced by our model, and conclude with its predictions for higher intensity laser systems.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (41)

  1. B. Dromey, S. Kar, M. Zepf, and P. Foster, The plasma mirror: A subpicosecond optical switch for ultrahigh power lasers, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 75, 645 (2004).
  2. P. H. Bucksbaum, The future of attosecond spectroscopy, Science 317, 766 (2007).
  3. A. P. Mancuso, T. Gorniak, F. Staier, O. M. Yefanov, R. Barth, C. Christophis, B. Reime, J. Gulden, A. Singer, M. E. Pettit et al., Coherent imaging of biological samples with femtosecond pulses at the free-electron laser FLASH, New J. Phys. 12, 035003 (2010).
  4. S. Mathias, H. C. Kapteyn, and M. M. Murnane, Ultrafast material science probed using coherent x-ray pulses from high-harmonic generation, in Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics (Springer International Publishing, Heidelberg, 2013), Chap. 7, pp. 149–175.
  5. F. Quéré, C. Thaury, P. Monot, S. Dobosz, P. Martin, J.-P. Geindre, and P. Audebert, Coherent Wake Emission of High-Order Harmonics from Overdense Plasmas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 125004 (2006).
  6. B. Dromey, M. Zepf, A. Gopal, K. Lancaster, M. S. Wei, K. Krushelnick, M. Tatarakis, N. Vakakis, S. Moustaizis, R. Kodama, M. Tampo, C. Stoeckl, R. Clarke, H. Habara, D. Neely, S. Karsch, and P. Norreys, High harmonic generation in the relativistic limit, Nat. Phys. 2, 456 (2006).
  7. D. an der Brügge and A. Pukhov, Enhanced relativistic harmonics by electron nanobunching, Phys. Plasmas 17, 033110 (2010).
  8. B. Dromey, S. Rykovanov, M. Yeung, R. Hörlein, D. Jung, D. Gautier, T. Dzelzainis, D. Kiefer, S. Palaniyppan, R. Shah et al., Coherent synchrotron emission from electron nanobunches formed in relativistic laser–plasma interactions, Nat. Phys. 8, 804 (2012).
  9. M. R. Edwards and J. M. Mikhailova, The x-ray emission effectiveness of plasma mirrors: Reexamining power-law scaling for relativistic high-order harmonic generation, Sci. Rep. 10, 5154 (2020).
  10. A. L'Huillier, D. Descamps, A. Johansson, J. Norin, J. Mauritsson, and C.-G. Wahlström, Applications of high-order harmonics, Eur. Phys. J. D 26, 91 (2003).
  11. A. Cingöz, D. C. Yost, T. K. Allison, A. Ruehl, M. E. Fermann, I. Hartl, and J. Ye, Direct frequency comb spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet, Nature (London) 482, 68 (2012).
  12. D. A. Shapiro, Y.-S. Yu, T. Tyliszczak, J. Cabana, R. Celestre, W. Chao, K. Kaznatcheev, A. D. Kilcoyne, F. Maia, S. Marchesini et al., Chemical composition mapping with nanometre resolution by soft x-ray microscopy, Nat. Photonics 8, 765 (2014).
  13. J. Zhou, J. Peatross, M. M. Murnane, H. C. Kapteyn, and I. P. Christov, Enhanced High-Harmonic Generation Using 25 fs Laser Pulses, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 752 (1996).
  14. M. Gaarde, P. Antoine, A. Persson, B. Carré, A. L'Huillier, and C.-G. Wahlström, High-order tunable sum and difference frequency mixing in the XUV region, J. Phys. B: At., Mol. Opt. Phys. 29, L163 (1996).
  15. V. Schuster, V. Hilbert, R. Klas, C. Liu, M. Tschernajew, B. Bernhardt, J. Rothhardt, and J. Limpert, Agile spectral tuning of high order harmonics by interference of two driving pulses, Opt. Express 29, 22117 (2021).
  16. M. Wünsche, S. Fuchs, S. Aull, J. Nathanael, M. Möller, C. Rödel, and G. G. Paulus, Quasi-supercontinuum source in the extreme ultraviolet using multiple frequency combs from high-harmonic generation, Opt. Express 25, 6936 (2017).
  17. A. Borot, A. Malvache, X. Chen, A. Jullien, J.-P. Geindre, P. Audebert, G. Mourou, F. Quéré, and R. Lopez-Martens, Attosecond control of collective electron motion in plasmas, Nat. Phys. 8, 416 (2012).
  18. H. Vincenti, S. Monchocé, S. Kahaly, G. Bonnaud, P. Martin, and F. Quéré, Optical properties of relativistic plasma mirrors, Nat. Commun. 5, 3403 (2014).
  19. J. Gao, B. Li, F. Liu, Z.-Y. Chen, M. Chen, X. Ge, X. Yuan, L. Chen, Z. Sheng, and J. Zhang, Divergence control of relativistic harmonics by an optically shaped plasma surface, Phys. Rev. E 101, 033202 (2020).
  20. H. Kallala, F. Quéré, and H. Vincenti, Techniques to generate intense isolated attosecond pulses from relativistic plasma mirrors, Phys. Rev. Research 2, 043007 (2020).
  21. H. Vincenti, Achieving Extreme Light Intensities using Optically Curved Relativistic Plasma Mirrors, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 105001 (2019).
  22. L. Chopineau, A. Denoeud, A. Leblanc, E. Porat, P. Martin, H. Vincenti, and F. Quéré, Spatio-temporal characterization of attosecond pulses from plasma mirrors, Nat. Phys. 17, 968 (2021).
  23. A. Leblanc, S. Monchocé, H. Vincenti, S. Kahaly, J.-L. Vay, and F. Quéré, Spatial Properties of High-Order Harmonic Beams from Plasma Mirrors: A Ptychographic Study, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 155001 (2017).
  24. E. Porat, H. Yehuda, I. Cohen, A. Levanon, and I. Pomerantz, Diffraction-limited coherent wake emission, Phys. Rev. Research 3, L032059 (2021).
  25. S. Gitomer, R. Jones, F. Begay, A. Ehler, J. Kephart, and R. Kristal, Fast ions and hot electrons in the laser–plasma interaction, Phys. Fluids 29, 2679 (1986).
  26. F. Beg, A. Bell, A. Dangor, C. Danson, A. Fews, M. Glinsky, B. Hammel, P. Lee, P. Norreys, and M. Tatarakis, A study of picosecond laser–solid interactions up to 1019Wcm−2, Phys. Plasmas 4, 447 (1997).
  27. M. Cerchez, R. Jung, J. Osterholz, T. Toncian, O. Willi, P. Mulser, and H. Ruhl, Absorption of Ultrashort Laser Pulses in Strongly Overdense Targets, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 245001 (2008).
  28. F. Brunel, Not-So-Resonant, Resonant Absorption, Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 52 (1987).
  29. S. A. Self, Focusing of spherical Gaussian beams, Appl. Opt. 22, 658 (1983).
  30. B. Dromey, D. Adams, R. Hörlein, Y. Nomura, S. G. Rykovanov, D. C. Carroll, P. S. Foster, S. Kar, K. Markey, P. McKenna et al., Diffraction-limited performance and focusing of high harmonics from relativistic plasmas, Nat. Phys. 5, 146 (2009).
  31. C. Thaury, F. Quéré, J.-P. Geindre, A. Levy, T. Ceccotti, P. Monot, M. Bougeard, F. Réau, P. D'Oliveira, P. Audebert et al., Plasma mirrors for ultrahigh-intensity optics, Nat. Phys. 3, 424 (2007).
  32. E. Porat, A. Levanon, D. Roitman, I. Cohen, R. Louzon, and I. Pomerantz, Towards direct-laser-production of relativistic surface harmonics, in Relativistic Plasma Waves and Particle Beams as Coherent and Incoherent Radiation Sources III, edited by D. A. Jaroszynski and M. Hur (SPIE, Bellingham, 2019), Vol. 11036, p. 17.
  33. P. Tournois, Acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter for adaptive compensation of group delay time dispersion in laser systems, Opt. Commun. 140, 245 (1997).
  34. E. Treacy, Optical pulse compression with diffraction gratings, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 5, 454 (1969).
  35. S. Kahaly, S. Monchocé, H. Vincenti, T. Dzelzainis, B. Dromey, M. Zepf, P. Martin, and F. Quéré, Direct Observation of Density-Gradient Effects in Harmonic Generation from Plasma Mirrors, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 175001 (2013).
  36. O. Jahn, V. E. Leshchenko, P. Tzallas, A. Kessel, M. Krüger, A. Münzer, S. A. Trushin, G. D. Tsakiris, S. Kahaly, D. Kormin et al., Towards intense isolated attosecond pulses from relativistic surface high harmonics, Optica 6, 280 (2019).
  37. L. Chopineau, A. Leblanc, G. Blaclard, A. Denoeud, M. Thévenet, J. L. Vay, G. Bonnaud, P. Martin, H. Vincenti, and F. Quéré, Identification of Coupling Mechanisms between Ultraintense Laser Light and Dense Plasmas, Phys. Rev. X 9, 011050 (2019).
  38. J. Geindre, P. Audebert, A. Rousse, F. Fallies, J. Gauthier, A. Mysyrowicz, A. Dos Santos, G. Hamoniaux, and A. Antonetti, Frequency-domain interferometer for measuring the phase and amplitude of a femtosecond pulse probing a laser-produced plasma, Opt. Lett. 19, 1997 (1994).
  39. M. Bocoum, F. Böhle, A. Vernier, A. Jullien, J. Faure, and R. Lopez-Martens, Spatial-domain interferometer for measuring plasma mirror expansion, Opt. Lett. 40, 3009 (2015).
  40. R. Trebino, K. W. DeLong, D. N. Fittinghoff, J. N. Sweetser, M. A. Krumbügel, B. A. Richman, and D. J. Kane, Measuring ultrashort laser pulses in the time-frequency domain using frequency-resolved optical gating, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 68, 3277 (1997).
  41. T. Oksenhendler, S. Coudreau, N. Forget, V. Crozatier, S. Grabielle, R. Herzog, O. Gobert, and D. Kaplan, Self-referenced spectral interferometry, Appl. Phys. B 99, 7 (2010).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 4, L022036– Published 16 May, 2022
  • Received 10 February 2022
  • Accepted 29 April 2022
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation