Greifswald 2024 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik

P 25: Poster III

P 25.1: Poster

Donnerstag, 29. Februar 2024, 16:30–18:30, ELP 6: Foyer

Optical damage threshold of plasma density gratings — •Sophie Opara and Götz Lehmann — Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf

Plasma density gratings are periodic structures allowing the manipulation of high-power laser pulses with intensities far beyond the damage threshold level of solid state material. Such structures can be used as e.g. Bragg-type mirrors, polarizers, wave-plates and holographic lenses. The gratings are driven by beating laser pulses in underdense plasma and exist on the timescale of tens of pico-seconds, i.e. sufficiently long to manipulate high-power femto-second pulses. Since they can be re-created for every shot of the high-intensity pulse, they are usually considered as damageless optics.

However, the optical properties of density gratings depend on their periodic structure. Period and modulation amplitude determine their transmissive and reflective properties. Sufficiently strong laser pulses can manipulate the density distribution via their ponderomotive force and thus change the optical properties. The presented work aims to identify the intensity limit at which the gratings can not be anymore considered static and describe the underlying physical processes going along with the degradation of their structure.

Keywords: Plasma density gratings; Plasma-based optics; PIC simulations