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Optically controlled dense current structures driven by relativistic plasma aperture-induced diffraction

Nature Physics volume 12, pages 505–512 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The collective response of charged particles to intense fields is intrinsic to plasma accelerators and radiation sources, relativistic optics and many astrophysical phenomena. Here we show that a relativistic plasma aperture is generated in thin foils by intense laser light, resulting in the fundamental optical process of diffraction. The plasma electrons collectively respond to the resulting laser near-field diffraction pattern, producing a beam of energetic electrons with a spatial structure that can be controlled by variation of the laser pulse parameters. It is shown that static electron-beam and induced-magnetic-field structures can be made to rotate at fixed or variable angular frequencies depending on the degree of ellipticity in the laser polarization. The concept is demonstrated numerically and verified experimentally, and is an important step towards optical control of charged particle dynamics in laser-driven dense plasma sources.

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Figure 1: Intensity diffraction pattern induced by a fixed, predefined aperture.
Figure 2: 3D PIC simulations of laser diffraction and plasma electron density produced by the relativistic plasma aperture.
Figure 3: 3D PIC simulation results for circularly polarized light.
Figure 4: Experiment and 3D PIC simulation results for the electron density distribution.
Figure 5: 3D EPOCH simulation with laser focal spot size equal to 1.5 μm and 6 μm.
Figure 6: Magnetic field structure driven by circularly polarized light.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Gemini team at the Central Laser Facility of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for their support during the experiment; in particular, N. Booth and D. Symes. We acknowledge the use of the ARCHIE-WeST and ARCHER high performance computers. This work is supported by EPSRC (grants: EP/J003832/1, EP/L001357/1, EP/K022415/1 and EP/L000237/1), STFC (grant number ST/K502340/1) and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant: FA8655-13-1-3008). EPOCH was developed under EPSRC grant EP/G054940/1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SUPA Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK

    Bruno Gonzalez-Izquierdo, Ross J. Gray, Martin King, Rachel J. Dance, Robbie Wilson, John McCreadie, Nicholas M. H. Butler, Remi Capdessus, David Neely & Paul McKenna

  2. Central Laser Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK

    Steve Hawkes, James S. Green & David Neely

  3. Centre for Plasma Physics, Queens University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK

    Marco Borghesi

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  1. Bruno Gonzalez-Izquierdo
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Contributions

B.G.-I., R.J.G., M.K. and P.M. conceived the experiment. R.J.G., R.J.D., B.G.-I., R.W., J.M., N.M.H.B., S.H., J.S.G. and P.M. executed the experiment and B.G.-I. and R.J.G. performed the analysis of the experimental data. M.K. and B.G.-I. performed the simulations and analysis of the simulation results, with contributions from R.C. P.M. provided overall supervision of the work, with contributions from D.N. and M.B. The manuscript was prepared by P.M., B.G.-I., M.K. and R.J.G. with contributions from all authors.

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Correspondence to Paul McKenna.

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Gonzalez-Izquierdo, B., Gray, R., King, M. et al. Optically controlled dense current structures driven by relativistic plasma aperture-induced diffraction. Nature Phys 12, 505–512 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3613

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