Plasma Dynamics

Contains table of contents for Section 2 and reports on three research projects.U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-90-J-4130Princeton University/Tokamak Physics Experiment Grant S-03688-GU.S. Department of Energy Grant DE-FG02-91-ER-54109National Science Foundation Grant ATM 94-2428

Post-Compression of 9.2-µm Terawatt Laser Pulses to Femtoseconds

Contemporary CO2 laser systems are capable to delivering picosecond pulses of the multi-terawatt peak power. Further pulse compression to a few cycles is possible using a post-compression in bulk materials with negative group velocity dispersion (GVD). We have experimentally demonstrated the post-compression of a long-wave infrared (9.2 μm) 150-GW peak power pulse from 1.85 ps to less than 500 fs using a combination of two optical materials with significantly different ratios of the nonlinear refractive index to the GVD coefficient. Such combination allows for optimization of the compression mechanism and promises a viable path to scaling peak powers to multi-terawatt levels

Ultrashort-pulse, terawatt, long-wave infrared lasers based on high-pressure CO

We discuss the state of the art, the ongoing research and development, and the potential for achieving a supra-terawatt peak power in few-cycle pulses at a long-wave infrared wavelength with a laser system based on high-pressure, mixed-isotope CO2 amplifiers

Observation of coherent terahertz edge radiation from compressed electron beams

Coherent radiation emitted from a compressed electron bunch as it traverses the sharp edge regions of a magnetic chicane has been investigated at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Accelerator Test Facility. Electron beam measurements using coherent transition radiation interferometry indicate a 100 fs rms bunch accompanied by distinct distortions in energy spectrum due to strong self-fields. These self-fields are manifested in emitted high power THz radiation, which displays signatures of the phenomenon known as coherent edge radiation. Radiation characterization studies undertaken include spectral analysis, far-field intensity distribution, polarization, and dependence on the electron bunch length. The observed aspects of the beam and radiation allow detailed comparisons with start-to-end simulations

Publisher's Note: Probing the pathway of an ultrafast structural phase transition to illuminate the transition mechanism in Cu2S (Appl. Phys. Lett. (2018) 113 (041904) DOI: 10.1063/1.5032132)

Applied Physics Letters. Volume 113, Issue 7, 13 August 2018, Article number 079902.© 2018 Author(s). This article was originally published online on 24 July 2018. The initially-published version contained a typographical error in the surname of co-author Ryan Manso. The byline appears correctly above. All online versions of the article were corrected on 2 August 2018