Boosting the performance of Brillouin amplification via reduction of parasitic Raman scattering and filamentation

ORAL

Abstract

Brillouin amplification of laser pulses in plasma is a promising scheme to produce picosecond pulses of petawatt power, as it is more robust than Raman amplification. However, parasitic instabilities spoil the quality of the amplified pulse: Raman backscattering affects the contrast ratio, filamentation ruins the pulse envelope and Raman forward scattering spoils the pulse's coherence and causes the amplification to saturate. Through analytic theory and simulations, we have identified a novel parameter window where the performance of Brillouin amplification is maximized and the highest pulse powers are reached while the deleterious influence of parasitic instabilities is strongly reduced. The respective merits of using plasma densities either above or below the quarter-critical density will be discussed.

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Authors

  • Raoul Trines

    STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK

  • R. Bingham

    STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK

  • Peter Norreys

    STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK, STFC

  • Eduardo P. Alves

    Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, UK, GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusao Nuclear, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

  • Ricardo Fonseca

    DCTI/ISCTE Instituto Universit\'ario de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, UK, GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusao Nuclear, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, DCTI, ISCTE-Lisbon University Institute, Lisbon, Portugal, GoLP/Instituto de Plasma e Fus\~ao Nuclear, Instituto Superior T\'ecnico, Lisbon, Portugal, GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fus\~ao Nuclear, Instituto Superior T\'ecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

  • Luis Silva

    GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fus\~ao Nuclear, Instituto Superior T\'ecnico, Universidade de, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, UK, GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusao Nuclear, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, GoLP-IPFN, Instituto Superior Tecnico, GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fus\~ao Nuclear, Instituto Superior T\'ecnico, Lisbon, GoLP/Instituto de Plasma e Fus\~ao Nuclear, Instituto Superior T\'ecnico, Lisbon, Portugal, GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fus\~ao Nuclear, Instituto Superior T\'ecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

  • K.A. Humphrey

    University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

  • Frederico Fiuza

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

  • R.A. Cairns

    University of St. Andrews, Fife, UK, University of St Andrews, Fife, UK