Distortion-free guiding of 0.2/spl times/10/sup 18/ W/cm/sup 2/ pulses through a fully-ionized 1.5 cm He plasma channel

Author

Gaul, E.W. ; Grigsby, F. ; Matlis, N.H. ; Shim, B. ; Zgadzaj, R. ; Downer, M.C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Texas Univ., Austin, TX, USA

fYear

2002

fDate

19-24 May 2002

Firstpage

71

Lastpage

72

Abstract

Summary form only given. Plasma waveguides capable of guiding relativistically intense is laser pulses without optical distortion are essential to developing GeV-scale laser wakefield accelerators and coherent short-wavelength sources. We report the highest intensity-length product to date for distortion-free guiding. We generated our channels in a backfill of He gas. This intensity readily field-ionizes high-Z gases thus initiating the channel-forming process, but forms an incompletely-ionized channel, in which relativistically intense pulses suffer ionization-induced phase distortion during guiding and ionization-induced defocusing when entering the channel.

Keywords

helium; ionisation; laser beams; plasma accelerators; plasma light propagation; wakefield accelerators; He; backfill; coherent short-wavelength sources; differentially-pumped cell; distorted exit mode; distorted spectrum; distortion-free guiding; fully-ionized plasma channel; intense pulse propagation; intensity-length product; ionization induced defocusing; ionization-induced phase distortion; laser wakefield accelerators; plasma waveguides; relativistically intense laser pulses; relativistically intense pulses; Helium; Ionization; Laser beams; Optical propagation in plasma media;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference, 2002. QELS '02. Technical Digest. Summaries of Papers Presented at the

Conference_Location

Long Beach, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-708-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/QELS.2002.1031109

Filename

1031109