Beam distortion effects upon focusing an ultrashort petawatt laser pulse to greater than 10 22 W/cm 2

Tiwari, G.; Gaul, E.; Martinez, M.; Dyer, G.; Gordon, J.; Spinks, M.; Toncian, T.; Bowers, B.; Jiao, X.; Kupfer, R.; Lisi, L.; McCary, E.; Roycroft, R.; Yandow, A.; Glenn, G. D.; Donovan, M.; Ditmire, T.; Hegelich, B. M.

doi:10.1364/ol.44.002764

Beam distortion effects upon focusing an ultrashort petawatt laser pulse to greater than 10 ²² W/cm ²

Journal Article · Fri May 24 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Optics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.44.002764· OSTI ID:1532478

^[1]; Gaul, E. ^[2]; Martinez, M. ^[3]; Dyer, G. ^[3]; Gordon, J. ^[1]; Spinks, M. ^[1]; Toncian, T. ^[4]; Bowers, B. ^[1]; Jiao, X. ^[1]; Kupfer, R. ^[1]; Lisi, L. ^[1]; McCary, E. ^[1]; Roycroft, R.; Yandow, A. ^[1]; ^[1]; Donovan, M. ^[1]; Ditmire, T. ^[2]; ^[5]

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.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515; NA0002008

OSTI ID:: 1532478

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1515608

Journal Information:: Optics Letters, Journal Name: Optics Letters Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 44; ISSN 0146-9592; ISSN OPLEDP

Publisher:: Optical Society of America (OSA)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited By (1)

Direct laser ion acceleration and above-threshold ionization at intensities from 10 21 W / cm 2 to 3 × 10 23 W / cm 2 Yandow, A.; Toncian, T.; Ditmire, T. Physical Review A, Vol. 100, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.100.053406	journal	November 2019

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Beam Distortion Effects upon focusing an ultrashort Petawatt Laser Pulse to greater than 10²² W/cm² Tiwari, Ganesh; Gaul, Erhard; Martinez, Mikael https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4456613.v1 The current record is supplemented by this collection	collection	January 2019