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Summary: The terahertz radiation from ultraintense laser-produced plasmas has aroused increasing attention recently as a promising approach toward strong terahertz sources. Here, we present the highly efficient production of millijoule-level terahertz pulses, from the rear side of a metal foil irradiated by a 10-TW femtosecond laser pulse. By characterizing the terahertz and electron emission in combination with particle-in-cell simulations, the physical reasons behind the efficient terahertz generation are discussed. The resulting focused terahertz electric field strength reaches over 2 GV/m, which is justified by experiments on terahertz strong-field-driven nonlinearity in semiconductors.

An ever-increasing number of strong-field applications, such as ultrafast coherent control over matter and light, require driver light pulses that are both high power and spectrally tunable. The realization of such a source in the terahertz (THz) band has long been a formidable challenge. Here, we demonstrate, via experiment and theory, efficient production of terawatt (TW)-level THz pulses from high-intensity picosecond laser irradiation on a metal foil. It is shown that the THz spectrum can be manipulated effectively by tuning the laser pulse duration or target size. A general analytical framework for THz generation is developed, involving both the high-current electron emission and a time-varying electron sheath at the target rear, and the spectral tunability is found to stem from the change of the dominant THz generation mechanism. In addition to being an ultrabright source (brightness temperature of about 10^{21} K) for extreme THz science, the THz radiation presented here also enables a unique in situ laser-plasma diagnostic. Employing the THz radiation to quantify the escaping electrons and the transient sheath shows good agreement with experimental measurements.

We have studied the propagation dynamics of ultrafast electron pulses by using an improved mean-field model, in which the propagation of the electron pulses across the boundary of the acceleration region is explicitly considered. A large decrease in the speed spread of the electron pulses (we called “boundary kick”) is observed and properly treated leading to a significant improvement in the simulation accuracy, particularly when the density of electrons is very large. We show that our method is consistent with the simulation by the N-particle method, while others can introduce factorial error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bow shock is formed in the interaction of a high-speed laser-driven plasma cloud with a cylinder obstacle. Its temporal and spatial structures are observed by shadowgraphy and interferometry. The width of the shock transition region is ∼ 50 μm, comparable to the ion–ion collision mean free path, which indicates that collision is dominated in the shock probably. The Mach-number of the ablating plasma cloud is ∼ 15 at first, and decreases with time resulting in a changing shock structure. A two-dimension hydrodynamics code, USim, is used to simulate the interaction process. The simulated shocks can well reproduce the observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coherent transition radiation in the terahertz (THz) region with energies of sub-mJ/pulse has been demonstrated by relativistic laser-driven electron beams crossing the solid-vacuum boundary. Targets including mass-limited foils and layered metal-plastic targets are used to verify the radiation mechanism and characterize the radiation properties. Observations of THz emissions as a function of target parameters agree well with the formation-zone and diffraction model of transition radiation. Particle-in-cell simulations also well reproduce the observed characteristics of THz emissions. The present THz transition radiation enables not only a potential tabletop brilliant THz source, but also a novel noninvasive diagnostic for fast electron generation and transport in laser-plasma interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]