15–16 Oct 2015
Europe/Zurich timezone

Amplification of short laser pulses by Stimulated Brillouin Backscattering

15 Oct 2015, 17:15
40m
Poster session POSTER SESSION

Speaker

Thomas Gangolf (ILPP, Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany)

Description

Since high-power laser beams are needed as a driver for future laser plasma accelerators, there is an ongoing quest for novel techniques to obtain ever higher laser intensities. In this field of research, plasma amplification has drawn much attention. This approach benefits from the fact that a plasma can sustain much higher intensities than a solid state amplifier. In a plasma, energy can be transferred from one laser pulse (pump) to another (seed), either via a high-frequency plasma electron wave (stimulated Raman backscattering, SRS) or via a low-frequency ion acoustic wave (stimulated Brillouin backscattering, SBS [1,2]). In this contribution, we report on two experiments on amplification by SBS using pump and seed pulses counterpropagating in a preformed plasma. At the ELFIE laser facility (LULI, Palaiseau, France), short (700 fs, 35 mJ) seed pulses were amplified by longer high-energy (3...6 ps, 9 J) pump pulses. The seed was amplified in the sc-SBS (strong coupling) regime where the plasma wave is a nonlinear oscillation forced by the pump laser. We observed that the process is less sensitive to competing mechanisms in this regime. We also intend to report on a recent experiment at the ARCTURUS Ti:Sapphire laser system (ILPP, Düsseldorf, Germany). Its objective is to study the process for ultrashort seed pulses (30...200 fs) which simulations have shown to be favorable for amplification [3]. For the first time, we will also investigate the lower limit for the seed pulse duration for which the seed remains short. [1] L. Lancia et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 025001 (2010) [2] C. Riconda et al., Phys. Plasmas 20, 083115 (2013) [3] S. Weber et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 055004 (2013)

Primary author

Thomas Gangolf (ILPP, Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany)

Co-authors

Alexander Frank (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany) Anna Giribono (Dept. SBAI, Università di Roma "La Sapienza", 00161 Rome, Italy) Caterina Riconda (LULI, UPMC - École polytechnique - CNRS - CEA, 75252 Paris, France) Gérard Mourou (IZEST, École polytechnique - CEA, 91128 Palaiseau, France) Jean-Raphaël Marquès (LULI, École polytechnique - CNRS - CEA - UPMC, 91128 Palaiseau, France) Julien Fuchs (LULI, École polytechnique - CNRS - CEA - UPMC, 91128 Palaiseau, France) Kevin Glize (CEA, Bruyères-le-Châtel, 91297 Arpajon, France) Laura Vassura (LULI, École polytechnique - CNRS - CEA - UPMC, 91128 Palaiseau, France) Livia Lancia (Dept. SBAI, Università di Roma "La Sapienza", 00161 Rome, Italy) Marco Chiaramello (LULI, UPMC - École polytechnique - CNRS - CEA, 75252 Paris, France) Marius Blecher (ILPP, Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany) Mirela Cerchez (ILPP, Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany) Oswald Willi (ILPP, Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany) Simon Bolanos (LULI, École polytechnique - CNRS - CEA - UPMC, 91128 Palaiseau, France) Stefan Weber (Institute of Physics of the ASCR, ELI-Beamlines, 18221 Prague, Czech Republic)

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