Beam distortion effects upon focusing an ultrashort petawatt laser pulse to greater than 10 22 W/cm 2
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States); National Energetics, Austin, TX (United States)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden (Germany)
- Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States); Center for Relativistic Laser Science, Inst. for Basic Science, Gwangju (South Korea)
When an ultrashort laser pulse is tightly focused to a size approaching its central wavelength, the properties of the focused spot diverge from the diffraction-limited case. Here, we report on this change in behavior of a tightly focused petawatt-class laser beam by an $f/1$ off-axis parabolic mirror (OAPM). Considering the effects of residual aberration, the spatial profile of the near-field, and pointing error, we estimate the deviation in peak intensities of the focused spot from the ideal case. Here, we verify that the estimated peak intensity values are within an acceptable error range of the measured values. With the added uncertainties in target alignment, we extend the estimation to infer on-target peak intensities of ≥1022 W/cm2 for a target at the focal plane of this $f/1$ OAPM.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515; FA9550-14-1-0045; FA9550-17-1-0264; 12-63-PULSEFP014; NA0002008
- OSTI ID:
- 1532478
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1515608
- Journal Information:
- Optics Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 11; ISSN 0146-9592
- Publisher:
- Optical Society of America (OSA)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Direct laser ion acceleration and above-threshold ionization at intensities from to
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journal | November 2019 |
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