Laser pulse sharpening with electromagnetically induced transparency in plasma

We propose a laser-controlled plasma shutter technique to generate sharp laser pulses using a process analogous to electromagnetically induced transparency in atoms. The shutter is controlled by a laser with moderately strong intensity, which induces a transparency window below the cutoff frequency, and hence enables propagation of a low frequency laser pulse. Numerical simulations demonstrate that it is possible to generate a sharp pulse wavefront (sub-ps) using two broad pulses in high density plasma. The technique can work in a regime that is not accessible by plasma mirrors when the pulse pedestals are stronger than the ionization intensity.

[1]  Lord Rayleigh,et al.  On Reflection of Vibrations at the Confines of two Media between which the Transition is Gradual , 1879 .

[2]  Dawson,et al.  Frequency up-conversion of electromagnetic radiation with use of an overdense plasma. , 1988, Physical review letters.

[3]  Harris,et al.  Nonlinear optical processes using electromagnetically induced transparency. , 1990, Physical review letters.

[4]  Agarwal.  Coherent population trapping states of a system interacting with quantized fields and the production of the photon statistics matched fields. , 1993, Physical review letters.

[5]  Kirsanov,et al.  Theory of Raman scattering for a short ultrastrong laser pulse in a rarefied plasma. , 1994, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[6]  Harris.  Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in an Ideal Plasma. , 1996, Physical review letters.

[7]  J. Marangos.  Electromagnetically induced transparency , 1998 .

[8]  A. Matsko,et al.  ELECTROMAGNETIC-WAVE PROPAGATION AND AMPLIFICATION IN OVERDENSE PLASMAS : APPLICATION TO FREE ELECTRON LASERS , 1998 .

[9]  Gennady Shvets,et al.  FAST COMPRESSION OF LASER BEAMS TO HIGHLY OVERCRITICAL POWERS , 1999 .

[10]  D. Gordon,et al.  On the possibility of electromagnetically induced transparency in a plasma. I. Infinite plasma , 2000 .

[11]  N. Fisch,et al.  Suppression of superluminous precursors in high-power backward Raman amplifiers. , 2001, Physical review letters.

[12]  N. Fisch,et al.  Finite-duration seeding effects in powerful backward Raman amplifiers. , 2004 .

[13]  S. Suckewer,et al.  Reaching nonlinear regime in Raman amplification of ultrashort laser pulses , 2005, 2005 Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference.

[14]  Vladimir T. Tikhonchuk,et al.  Short light pulse amplification and compression by stimulated Brillouin scattering in plasmas in the strong coupling regime , 2006 .

[15]  Robin Marjoribanks,et al.  Plasma mirrors for ultrahigh-intensity optics , 2007 .

[16]  P Audebert,et al.  Experimental evidence of short light pulse amplification using strong-coupling stimulated brillouin scattering in the pump depletion regime. , 2010, Physical review letters.

[17]  Ferenc Krausz,et al.  Ultra-high-contrast few-cycle pulses for multipetawatt-class laser technology. , 2011, Optics letters.

[18]  B. Albright,et al.  Dynamics of relativistic transparency and optical shuttering in expanding overdense plasmas , 2012, Nature Physics.

[19]  R. G. Evans,et al.  Contemporary particle-in-cell approach to laser-plasma modelling , 2015 .

[20]  K. Qu,et al.  Plasma Wave Seed for Raman Amplifiers. , 2016, Physical review letters.