Harmonic Generation from Relativistic Plasma Surfaces in Ultra-Steep Plasma Density Gradients

Abstract

Harmonic generation in the limit of ultra-steep density gradients is studied experimentally. Observations demonstrate that while the efficient generation of high order harmonics from relativistic surfaces requires steep plasma density scale-lengths ($L_p/\lambda <1$) the absolute efficiency of the harmonics declines for the steepest plasma density scale-length $L_p\to 0$, thus demonstrating that near-steplike density gradients can be achieved for interactions using high-contrast high-intensity laser pulses. Absolute photon yields are obtained using a calibrated detection system. The efficiency of harmonics reflected from the laser driven plasma surface via the Relativistic Oscillating Mirror (ROM) was estimated to be in the range of 10^{-4} - 10^{-6} of the laser pulse energy for photon energies ranging from 20-40 eV, with the best results being obtained for an intermediate density scale-length.

References in corpus (3)

• Theory of high harmonic generation in relativistic laser interaction with overdense plasma
• Relativistic Doppler effect: universal spectra and zeptosecond pulses
• Ultrarelativistic nanoplasmonics as a new route towards extreme intensity attosecond pulses

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