Lancia, L., Giribono, A., Vassura, L. et al. (10 more authors) (2016) Signatures of the Self-Similar Regime of Strongly Coupled Stimulated Brillouin Scattering for Efficient Short Laser Pulse Amplification. Physical Review Letters, 116 (7). ARTN 075001. ISSN 0031-9007
Abstract
Plasma-based laser amplification is considered as a possible way to overcome the technological limits of present day laser systems and achieve exawatt laser pulses. Efficient amplification of a picosecond laser pulse by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) of a pump pulse in a plasma requires to reach the self-similar regime of the strongly coupled (SC) SBS. In this Letter, we report on the first observation of the signatures of the transition from linear to self-similar regimes of SC-SBS, so far only predicted by theory and simulations. With a new fully head-on collision geometry, subpicosecond pulses are amplified by a factor of 5 with energy transfers of few tens of mJ. We observe pulse shortening, frequency spectrum broadening, and down-shifting for increasing gain, signatures of SC-SBS amplification entering the self-similar regime. This is also confirmed by the power law dependence of the gain on the amplification length: doubling the interaction length increases the gain by a factor 1.4. Pump backward Raman scattering (BRS) on SC-SBS amplification has been measured for the first time, showing a strong decrease of the BRS amplitude and frequency bandwidth when SBS seed amplification occurs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 American Physical Society. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 12 Dec 2016 16:44 |
Last Modified: | 21 Mar 2018 00:27 |
Published Version: | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.075001 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Physical Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.075001 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:107633 |