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Simulations of efficient Raman amplification into the multipetawatt regime

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 87–92 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Contemporary high-power laser systems make use of solid-state laser technology to reach petawatt pulse powers. The breakdown threshold for optical components in these systems, however, demands metre-scale beams. Raman amplification of laser beams promises a breakthrough by the use of much smaller amplifying media, that is, millimetre-diameter plasmas, but so far only 60 GW peak powers have been obtained in the laboratory, far short of the desired multipetawatt regime. Here we show, through the first large-scale multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations of this process, that multipetawatt peak powers can be reached, but only in a narrow parameter window dictated by the growth of plasma instabilities. Raman amplification promises reduced cost and complexity of intense lasers, enabling much greater access to higher-intensity regimes for scientific and industrial applications. Furthermore, we show that this process scales to short wavelengths, enabling compression of X-ray free-electron laser pulses to attosecond duration.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustrations of various processes occurring during Raman amplification.
Figure 2: Comparison of Raman amplification for two different parameter configurations, to demonstrate the importance of controlling long-wavelength laser–plasma instabilities.
Figure 3: Influence of the plasma density and the pump intensity on energy-transfer efficiency (determined by the pump RBS growth rate) and instabilities (determined by the growth rates of pump RFS and probe filamentation).
Figure 4: Effect of various parameters on the RFS and modulational instabilities, which both affect the longitudinal envelope of the growing probe.
Figure 5: Comparison of filamentation in two and three dimensions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the STFC Accelerator Science and Technology Centre, by the STFC Centre for Fundamental Physics, by EPSRC through grant EP/G04239X/1 and by FCT (Portugal) through grant PTDC/FIS/66823/2006. We would like to thank W. Mori for discussions, the Plasma Theory and Simulation Group of UC Berkeley for the use of XOOPIC and the OSIRIS consortium for the use of OSIRIS. Simulations were carried out on the Scarf-Lexicon Cluster (STFC RAL), the IST Cluster (IST Lisbon) and the Hoffman Cluster (UCLA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Laser Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX, UK

    R. M. G. M. Trines, R. Bingham & P. A. Norreys

  2. Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YW, UK

    R. M. G. M. Trines

  3. GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear—Laboratorio Associado, Instituto Superior Técnico, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal

    F. Fiúza, R. A. Fonseca & L. O. Silva

  4. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0NG, UK

    R. Bingham

  5. DCTI/ISCTE Lisbon University Institute, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal

    R. A. Fonseca

  6. University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK

    R. A. Cairns

  7. Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    P. A. Norreys

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Contributions

R.M.G.M.T.: simulations, data analysis and manuscript preparation. F.F.: simulations, data analysis and analytic theory. R.B.: data analysis and analytic theory. R.A.F.: code and algorithm development. L.O.S.: data analysis and manuscript preparation. R.A.C.: physics of Raman amplification and interpretation of simulations. P.A.N.: data analysis and manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to P. A. Norreys.

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Trines, R., Fiúza, F., Bingham, R. et al. Simulations of efficient Raman amplification into the multipetawatt regime. Nature Phys 7, 87–92 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1793

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