Plasma effects in harmonic emission in relativistic laser interactions with overdense plasma targets examined from single particle radiation models

Modulation of harmonic emission spectra in relativistic laser interactions with overdense plasma

Near-monochromatic high-harmonic radiation from relativistic laser–plasma interactions with blazed grating surfaces

Intense, femtosecond laser interactions with blazed grating targets are studied through experiment and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The high harmonic spectrum produced by the laser is angularly dispersed by the grating leading to near-monochromatic spectra emitted at different angles, each dominated by a single harmonic and its integer-multiples. The spectrum emitted in the direction of ...

Relativistic laser–plasma interactions

By focusing petawatt peak power laser light to intensities up to 1021 W cm−2, highly relativistic plasmas can now be studied. The force exerted by light pulses with this extreme intensity has been used to accelerate beams of electrons and protons to energies of a million volts in distances of only microns. This acceleration gradient is a thousand times greater than in radio-frequency-based acce...

Plasma Modulation of Harmonic Emission Spectra from Laser-Dense Plasma Interactions

We report results from PIC simulations of the interaction of intense laser light with overdense plasma designed to examine the effects of plasma waves generated by pulses of fast electrons on high harmonic emission from the plasma. We show that the emission spectrum is modulated at the plasma frequency and identify combinations of parameters and circumstances favourable for modulation. In parti...

High harmonic generation in relativistic laser–plasma interaction

High harmonics generated due to the scattering of relativistic electrons from high intensity laser light is studied. The experiments are carried out with an Nd:Glass laser system with a peak intensity of 2310 W cm in underdense plasma. It is shown that, at high intensities, when the normalized electric field approaches unity, in addition to the conventional atomic harmonics from bound electrons...