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Ultraintense short-period infrared laser pulses play an important role in frontier scientific research, but their power is quite low when generated using current technology. This paper demonstrates a scheme for generating an ultraintense few-cycle infrared pulse by directly compressing a long infrared pulse. In this scheme, an infrared picosecond-to-nanosecond laser pulse counterpropagates with a rapidly extending plasma grating that is created by ionizing an undulated gas by a short laser pulse, and the infrared laser pulse is reflected by the rapidly extending plasma grating. Because of the high expansion velocity of the latter, the infrared laser pulse is compressed in the reflection process. One- and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that by this method, a pulse with a duration of tens of picoseconds in the mid- to far-infrared range can be compressed to a few cycles with an efficiency exceeding 60%, thereby making ultraintense few-cycle infrared pulses possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method is proposed for compressing laser pulses by fast-extending plasma gratings (FEPGs), which are created by ionizing a hypersonic wave generated by stimulated Brillouin scattering in a background gas. Ionized by a short laser pulse, the phonon forms a light-velocity FEPG to fully reflect a resonant pump laser. As the reflecting surface moves with the velocity of light, the reflected pulse is temporally overlapped and compressed. One- and two-dimensional fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations with a laser wavelength of 1 µm show that in this regime, a pump pulse is compressed from 10–40 ps to 7–10 fs (i.e., a few optical cycles), with a two-dimensional transfer efficiency up to 60%. This method is a promising way to produce critical laser powers while avoiding several significant problems that arise in plasma-based compressors, including an unwanted linear stage, major plasma instabilities, and the need for seed preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of a commissioning experiment on the SILEX-Ⅱ laser facility (formerly known as CAEP-PW) are reported. SILEX-Ⅱ is a complete optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification laser facility. The peak power reached about 1 PW in a 30 fs pulse duration during the experiment. The laser contrast was better than 1010 at 20 ps ahead of the main pulse. In the basic laser foil target interaction, a set of experimental data were collected, including spatially resolved x-ray emission, the image of the coherent transition radiation, the harmonic spectra in the direction of reflection, the energy spectra and beam profile of accelerated protons, hot-electron spectra, and transmitted laser energy fraction and spatial distribution. The experimental results show that the laser intensity reached 5 × 1020 W/cm2 within a 5.8 µm focus (FWHM). Significant laser transmission did not occur when the thickness of the CH foil was equal to or greater than 50 nm. The maximum energy of the accelerated protons in the target normal direction was roughly unchanged when the target thickness varied between 50 nm and 15 µm. The maximum proton energy via the target normal sheath field acceleration mechanism was about 21 MeV. We expect the on-target laser intensity to reach 1022 W/cm2 in the near future, after optimization of the laser focus and upgrade of the laser power to 3 PW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a method for improving the amplification performance of strong-coupling stimulated Brillouin scattering by adding an external static magnetic field longitudinal to the laser propagation direction. Simulation results show that when the laser intensity is low, the output seed intensity can be increased by applying an external magnetic field and a right-hand circularly polarized laser pulse. When the seed intensity is higher, the amplification enters the regime of relativistic electron nonlinearity, the amplification oscillates, and the portion of the seed that is amplified moves from the first peak to the second and then the third. Under these circumstances, a reversed magnetic field helps to obtain a higher output intensity and a smoother output pulse profile. Adjusting the magnetic field dynamically, such as by using a double-pass scheme, combines these two advantages and maximizes the intensity enlarging and profile smoothing of the output pulse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]