Ultrashort laser pulses and ultrashort electron bunches generated in relativistic laser-plasma interaction

Jérôme Faure (1) , Y. Glinec (1) , Guilhem Gallot (2) , Victor Malka (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 LOB - Laboratoire d'optique et biosciences

An experimental study of the interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with underdense plasmas in the relativistic regime is presented. A parameter regime of particular interest was found: the so-called bubble regime. In this regime, the laser pulse is focused to relativistic intensities and its pulse duration is comparable to or shorter than the plasma period. A wealth of physical phenomena occurs for such physical parameters. These phenomena have multiple signatures which have been investigated experimentally: (i) the generation of a high quality electron beam (high energy, very collimated, quasimonoenergetic energy distribution); (ii) the laser pulse temporal shortening in nonlinear plasma waves. In addition, experimental results suggest that the electron beam produced in this way has temporal structures shorter than 50 fs.

Keywords: high-speed optical techniques; plasma light propagation; relativistic plasmas; electron beams; plasma nonlinear waves

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Jérôme Faure, Y. Glinec, Guilhem Gallot, Victor Malka. Ultrashort laser pulses and ultrashort electron bunches generated in relativistic laser-plasma interaction. Physics of Plasmas, 2006, 13 (5), pp.056706. ⟨10.1063/1.2180727⟩. ⟨hal-00502352⟩