Development of a nanosecond-laser-pumped Raman amplifier for short laser pulses in plasma
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550 (United States)
- Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544 (United States)
Progress on developing a plasma amplifier/compressor based on stimulated Raman scattering of nanosecond laser pulses is reported. Generation of a millijoule seed pulse at a wavelength that is redshifted relative to the pump beam has been achieved using an external Raman gas cell. By interacting the shifted picosecond seed pulse and the nanosecond pump pulse in a gas jet plasma at a density of approx10{sup 19} cm{sup -3}, the upper limit of the pump intensity to avoid angular spray of the amplified seed has been determined. The Raman amplification has been studied as a function of the pump and seed intensities. Although the heating of plasma by the nanosecond pump pulse results in strong Landau damping of the plasma wave, an amplified pulse with an energy of up to 14 mJ has been demonstrated, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest output energy so far by Raman amplification in a plasma. One-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations indicate that the saturation of amplification is consistent with onset of particle trapping, which might be overcome by employing a shorter seed pulse.
- OSTI ID:
- 21371265
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 12; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3276739; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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