Abstract
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 metre-scale beams. Raman amplification of laser beams promises a breakthrough by the use of much smaller amplifying media, that is, millimetre-diameter plasmas, but so far only 60 GW peak powers have been obtained in the laboratory, far short of the desired multipetawatt regime. Here we show, through the first large-scale multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations of this process, that multipetawatt peak powers can be reached, but only in a narrow parameter window dictated by the growth of plasma instabilities. Raman amplification promises reduced cost and complexity of intense lasers, enabling much greater access to higher-intensity regimes for scientific and industrial applications. Furthermore, we show that this process scales to short wavelengths, enabling compression of X-ray free-electron laser pulses to attosecond duration.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 87-92 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Nature Physics |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 10 Oct 2010 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2011 |
Keywords
- SHORT LASER-PULSES
- PLASMA
- AMPLIFIERS
- BEAMS
- BACKSCATTER
- SCATTERING
- RADIATION
- WAVES
- CODE
- PUMP