Interaction of Short Petawatt Laser Pulses with Plasma
- Theory and Simulations

Laserlab Europe Workshop

Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Haus, Darmstadt
October 14 - 17, 2007 -
Registered Participants Information

Title:	Dr.
Last Name:	Geissler
First Name:	Michael
E-Mail:	m.geisslerqub.ac.uk
Affiliation for Badge:	University of Belfast
Institute:	Department of Physics and Astronomy
Address (Street):	Universityroad
Postal Code, City:	Belfast BT7 1NN
Country:	United Kingdom
Phone:	+44 28 9097 3294
Fax:	+44 28 9097 3110
Author(s):	Michael Geissler, Sergey Rykovanov, Jörg Schreiber, Matt Zepf1, Jürgen Meyer-ter-Vehn and George Tsakiris
Institute(s):	Queen's University, Belfast MPQ, Garching LMU, München
Title:	Surface harmonic generation with high power laser pulses
Abstract:	High harmonic generation from the interaction of a high power laser pulse with a solid target is a promising source to generate single attosecond pulses with peak intensities orders of magnitude beyond present techniques using gas jets. Recent experiments and theoretical work showed the great potential this method has. The striking advantages of surface generated harmonics are the scaleability to higher laser intensities, the power law decay of the harmonic spectrum and the coherence of the different harmonics. Assuming perfect focusability the harmonics can represent a single atto- or even sub-attosecond pulse with peak intensities close to the Schwinger limit. Here we will introduce the concept of surface harmonic generation and give an overview of the present experimental and theoretical status. Furthermore we will present studies using the three dimensional code ILLUMINATION where we have performed simulations of an experimentally realizable parameter range by high power laser systems to become available in the near future. The emphasis of the investigation is on the coherent nature of the emission. We studied the influence of the plasma scale length on the harmonic efficiency, angular distribution and the focusability. Finally we will present a polarization gating scheme to generate a single atto-second pulse. To give an insight into the complex nature of the generation process, the Laser-surface interaction for the presented cases can be followed by movies from the simulation.