Optical properties of relativistic plasma mirrors

Vincenti, H. and Monchocé, S. and Kahaly, Subhendu and Bonnaud, G. and Martin, P. and Quéré, F. (2014) Optical properties of relativistic plasma mirrors. NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 5. ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

The advent of ultrahigh-power femtosecond lasers creates a need for optical components suitableto handle ultrahigh light intensities. Due to the unavoidable laser-induced ionization of matter,these components will have to be based on a plasma medium. An archetype of such optical elementsis a plasma mirror, created when an intense femtosecond laser pulse impinges on a solid target.It consists of a dense plasma, formed by the laser field itself, which specularly reflects the mainpart of the pulse. Plasma mirrors have major potential applications as active optical elementsto manipulate the temporal and spatial properties of intense laser beams, in particular for thegeneration of intense attosecond pulses of light. We investigate the basic physics involved in thedeformation of a plasma mirror resulting from the light pressure exerted by the ultraintense laserduring reflection, by deriving a simple model of this fundamental process, which we validate bothnumerically and experimentally. The understanding of this deformation is essential for all futureapplications of plasma mirrors, especially for the generation of collimated attosecond beams. Weshow how its effect on the attosecond beam divergence can be mitigated by using the laser phase,thus providing crucial control for future applications in attosecond science.

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