Wavelength scaling of terahertz pulse energies delivered by two-color air plasmas
Journal article, 2019

We address the long-standing problem of anomalous growth observed in the terahertz (THz) energy yield from air plasmas created by two-color laser pulses, as the fundamental wavelength λ 0 is increased. Using two distinct optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs), we report THz energies scaling like λ α0 with large exponents 5.6 ≤ α ≤ 14.3, which departs from the growth in λ 20 expected from photocurrent theory. By means of comprehensive 3D simulations, we demonstrate that the changes in the laser beam size, pulse duration, and phase-matching conditions in the second-harmonic generation process when tuning the OPA’s carrier wavelength can lead to these high scaling powers. The value of the phase angle between the two colors reached at the exit of the doubling crystal turns out to be crucial and even explains non-monotonic behaviors in the measurements.

Author

Alisée Nguyen

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)

K. J. Kaltenecker

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

J. C. Delagnes

University of Bordeaux

Binbin Zhou

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

E. Cormier

University of Bordeaux

N. Fedorov

University of Bordeaux

R. Bouillaud

University of Bordeaux

D. Descamps

University of Bordeaux

Illia Thiele

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

Stefan Skupin

Université de Lyon

P. U. Jepsen

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Luc Bergé

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)

Optics Letters

0146-9592 (ISSN) 1539-4794 (eISSN)

Vol. 44 6 1488-1491

Subject Categories

Accelerator Physics and Instrumentation

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1364/OL.44.001488

PubMed

30874683

More information

Latest update

12/2/2021