High order modes of intense second harmonic light produced from a plasma aperture

Bacon E. F. J.; King M.; Wilson R.; Frazer T. P.; Gray R. J.; McKenna P.

doi:10.1063/5.0097585

Volume 7 Issue 5

Sep. 2022

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Bacon E. F. J., King M., Wilson R., Frazer T. P., Gray R. J., McKenna P.. High order modes of intense second harmonic light produced from a plasma aperture[J]. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2022, 7(5): 054401. doi: 10.1063/5.0097585

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Bacon E. F. J., King M., Wilson R., Frazer T. P., Gray R. J., McKenna P.. High order modes of intense second harmonic light produced from a plasma aperture[J]. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2022, 7(5): 054401. doi: 10.1063/5.0097585

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High order modes of intense second harmonic light produced from a plasma aperture

doi: 10.1063/5.0097585

Bacon E. F. J.¹,
King M.^{1, 2},
Wilson R.^1
,,
Frazer T. P.^{1, 2},
Gray R. J.^1
,,
McKenna P.^{1, 2
,
,
,}

1.
SUPA Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, United Kingdom
2.
The Cockcroft Institute, Sci-Tech Daresbury, Warrington WA4 4AD, United Kingdom

More Information

Corresponding author: a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: paul.mckenna@strath.ac.uk
Received Date: 2022-04-29
Accepted Date: 2022-06-23

Available Online: 2022-09-01

Publish Date: 2022-09-01

Abstract

Abstract

Because of their ability to sustain extremely high-amplitude electromagnetic fields and transient density and field profiles, plasma optical components are being developed to amplify, compress, and condition high-power laser pulses. We recently demonstrated the potential to use a relativistic plasma aperture—produced during the interaction of a high-power laser pulse with an ultrathin foil target—to tailor the spatiotemporal properties of the intense fundamental and second-harmonic light generated [Duff et al., Sci. Rep. 10 , 105 (2020)]. Herein, we explore numerically the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a preformed aperture target to generate second-harmonic laser light with higher-order spatial modes. The maximum generation efficiency is found for an aperture diameter close to the full width at half maximum of the laser focus and for a micrometer-scale target thickness. The spatial mode generated is shown to depend strongly on the polarization of the drive laser pulse, which enables changing between a linearly polarized TEM₀₁ mode and a circularly polarized Laguerre–Gaussian LG₀₁ mode. This demonstrates the use of a plasma aperture to generate intense higher-frequency light with selectable spatial mode structure.

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References

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