First measurement of laser wakefield oscillations by longitudinal interferometry
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (United States)
- The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Physics (United States)
- The Institute of Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod (Russia)
In this paper femtosecond time resolved measurements of the longitudinal and radial structure of laser wakefield oscillations using an all optical technique known as interferometric photon acceleration or longitudinal interferometry. In the experiment a probe pulse co-propagates behind an intense pulse (I=3{times}10{sup 17}W/cm{sup 2}, {lambda}=0.8{mu}m, {tau}=100fs) tightly focused in a helium gas. As the pump pulse ionizes the gas and exerts ponderomotive pressure on the resulting plasma, the probe pulses experiences electron density gradients behind the pump pulse which cause both DC phase shifts as well as spectral shifting of the probe pulse frequency spectrum. In order to detect the small changes in the frequency and phase with femtosecond resolution, our photon accelerator diagnostic uses multiple, temporally separated probe pulses which produce frequency domain interferograms. (AIP) {copyright} {ital 1997 American Institute of Physics.}
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG05-92ER40739
- OSTI ID:
- 587073
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9610281-; ISSN 0094-243X; TRN: 98:004459
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 398, Issue 1; Conference: 7. advanced accelerator concepts workshop, Lake Tahoe, NV (United States), Oct 1996; Other Information: PBD: Mar 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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