C. Rousseaux

Subfemtosecond, coherent, relativistic, and ballistic electron bunches generated at ω0 and 2ω0 in high intensity laser-matter interaction

Harmonics of the laser light have been observed from the rear side of solid targets irradiated by a laser beam at relativistic intensities. This emission evidences the acceleration of subfemtosecond electron bunches by the laser pulse in front of the target. These bunches emit coherent transition radiation (CTR) when passing through the back surface of the target. The spectral features of the signal recorded for targets of thicknesses up to several hundred microns are consistent with the electrons being accelerated by both the laser electric field—via vacuum heating and/or resonance absorption,—and the v×B component of the Lorentz force. The spatial study of the radiation shows that the relativistic electrons causing the CTR radiation are coherent and propagate ballistically through the target, originating from a source with a size of the order of the laser focal spot.

Strong absorption, intense forward-Raman scattering and relativistic electrons driven by a short, high intensity laser pulse through moderately underdense plasmas

The propagation of a short and intense laser pulse (1.057 μm, 350 fs, 1017 W/cm2–2×1019 W/cm2) through preformed undercritical plasmas (≈5%–40% of nc) has been experimentally investigated on the 100-TW laser facility at the Laboratoire pour l’Utilisation des Lasers Intenses. The transmission and reflection of the 1 μm laser pulse, the forward- and backward-Raman (respectively, F-SRS and B-SRS) scattered light and the emission of fast electrons are reported. Significant absorption occurs in these plasmas, which is found to increase with the laser intensity. B-SRS is strongly driven at 1017 W/cm2 and gradually decreases at higher intensities. It is shown that the transmission is low and only weakly dependent on the laser intensity. In contrast, the forward Raman scattering continuously increases with the laser intensity, up to 7% of the incident energy at 2×1019 W/cm2 in the lowest density case. The relativistic electrons accelerated in the forward direction appear to be correlated with the F-SRS. The exper...

Strong self-focusing in quasi-stationary laser plasmas

Collective Thomson scattering imaging has been used to study the propagation and self-focusing processes taking place during the interaction of a nanosecond laser beam with a preionized gas-jet plasma. The experiments have been carried out with a laser beam power PL exceeding greatly the critical power for ponderomotive self-focusingPc. It has been found that the position of the ion acoustic waves excited by stimulated Brillouin scattering depends only weakly on the initial focal position of the interactionlaser beam. These results, together with theoretical and numerical modeling, demonstrate that in such a regime (PL/Pc≫1)self-focusing is the dominant mechanism governing the localization of the interaction processes.