Surface plasmons in superintense laser-solid interactions

Abstract

We review studies of superintense laser interaction with solid targets where the generation of propagating surface plasmons (or surface waves) plays a key role. These studies include the onset of plasma instabilities at the irradiated surface, the enhancement of secondary emissions (protons, electrons, and photons as high harmonics in the XUV range) in femtosecond interactions with grating targets, and the generation of unipolar current pulses with picosecond duration. The experimental results give evidence of the existence of surface plasmons in the nonlinear regime of relativistic electron dynamics. These findings open up a route to the improvement of ultrashort laser-driven sources of energetic radiation and, more in general, to the extension of plasmonics in a high field regime.

9 figures, review paper

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Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Surface Plasmon-Driven Electron and Proton Acceleration without Grating Coupling
• Exploring ultra-high-intensity wakefields in carbon nanotube arrays: an effective plasma-density approach
• Ultrafast target charging due to polarization triggered by laser-accelerated electrons
• Extreme high field plasmonics: electron acceleration and XUV harmonic generation from ultrashort surface plasmons
• Ultrashort high energy electron bunches from tunable surface plasma waves driven with laser wavefront rotation
• Enhanced target normal sheath acceleration with a grooved hydrocarbon target
• Key parameters for surface plasma wave excitation in the ultra-high intensity regime
• Collimated hot electron generation from sub-wavelength grating target irradiated by a femtosecond laser pulse of relativistic intensity