Spectral Control of High Harmonics from Relativistic Plasmas Using
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Spectral control of high harmonics from relativistic plasmas using bicircular fields Zi-Yu Chen∗ National Key Laboratory of Shock Wave and Detonation Physics, Institute of Fluid Physics, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang 621999, China (Dated: April 13, 2018) We introduce two-color counterrotating circularly polarized laser fields as a new way to spectrally control high harmonic generation (HHG) from relativistic plasma mirrors. Through particle-in- cell simulations, we show that only a selected group of harmonic orders can appear owing to the symmetry of the laser fields and the related conservation laws. By adjusting the intensity ratio of the two driving field components, we demonstrate the overall HHG efficiency, the relative intensity of allowed neighboring harmonic orders, and the polarization state of the harmonic source can be tuned. The HHG efficiency of this scheme can be as high as that driven by a linearly polarized laser field. I. INTRODUCTION as charge trajectories. It has already been shown both theoretically[23–26] and experimentally[27–29] that the High harmonic generation (HHG) from relativistically bicircular configuration with one fundamental frequency intense laser irradiating plasma surfaces is an extreme ω and its counterrotating second harmonic 2ω can be ef- nonlinear process, which converts the fundamental driv- fective in CP HHG from atomic gases, whereas the HHG ing laser frequency to its harmonics, which can span process is also greatly suppressed driven by a one-color thousands of harmonic orders[1–4]. One of the main CP pulse, due to an electron’s lateral spreading and re- mechanisms is the so called relativistically oscillating duced probability of re-collision with its parent ion. It mirror (ROM) model[5–9]. The physical picture can be is demonstrated that only specific sets of harmonic or- interpreted as relativistic Doppler up-shifting of the laser ders can be displayed and selectively enhanced in the field reflected by the plasma surface, which acts as a mir- harmonic spectrum driven by such bicircular fields[27– ror oscillating with speed close to that of light. The har- 32]. Although such a field configuration has been stud- monics are usually emitted in the form of a comb in the ied extensively in gas HHG, to our knowledge it has not frequency domain and attosecond pulses in the time do- been addressed for surface plasmas HHG before. It is not main due to the broad spectral range. This thus provides clear whether this scheme should work in the relativistic a powerful radiation source in the extreme ultraviolet and plasma HHG regime or not, since the two HHG mecha- x-ray spectral region with attosecond duration. While nisms are fundamentally different. Therefore, the results many an investigation has been carried out to control obtained before within the gas HHG regime cannot be the temporal structure of the harmonics, e.g., to obtain applied directly to relativistic plasma HHG without val- an isolated single attosecond pulse[10–13], methods to idation. control the HHG spectrum remain limited. Among the In this work, we use ab initio particle-in-cell (PIC) reported spectral control schemes, selected enhancement simulations to confirm the effectiveness of such a scheme of HHG has been achieved by modifying the plasma den- in the relativistic plasma HHG regime and find that the sity ramp[14] or plasma surface morpha[15–19]. similar selection rules discovered in gas HHG are also Here we consider controlling the harmonic spectrum by applicable to relativistic plasma HHG. Thus the bicircu- structuring the laser field with a two-color field. Recently, lar fields can be used to spectral control high harmonics a two-color field scheme, i.e., two paralleled linearly po- from relativistic plasmas. The harmonic spectral fea- larized (LP) fields, has been introduced to relativistic tures, such as the appeared harmonic orders and their plasma HHG[20], which shows great potential to enhance helicity, are found to be governed by the symmetry of the resulting high harmonic yield[21]. Our approach is the laser fields and the related conservation laws. As different, which is based on using circularly polarized a result, selective harmonic enhancement and CP har- arXiv:1802.00249v2 [physics.plasm-ph] 12 Apr 2018 (CP) two-color driving pulses rotating in opposite direc- monic generation can be achieved. It is also shown such tions. Interestingly, it is known that the ROM HHG pro- an HHG process can have a high efficiency although using cess is almost completely suppressed by using one single CP pulses and under normal incidence interactions. CP pulse at normal incidence[22], because the laser pon- deromotive force in this case contains only slowly varying components following the pulse envelop. The situation II. SIMULATION SETUP may change drastically when combining two CP pulses with different frequency and helicity, as the pulses super- The simulations were performed using the one- position can lead to very different field patterns as well dimensional (1D) PIC code VLPL (Virtual Laser Plasma Lab)[33]. The driving laser fields with fundamental fre- quency ω0 (corresponding to wavelength λ0 = 800 nm) ∗ [email protected] and its second harmonic 2ω0 are circularly polarized in 2 FIG. 2. Electric field waveform of the (a) 10th and (b) 11th harmonic shown in Fig. 1(b). In order to see the helicity clearly, only parts of the waveform are shown. The rotation direction is defined as seen by a wave receiver, and the har- monic waves propagate along the -x axis. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Figure 1(b) shows the harmonic spectra obtained by fast Fourier transform of the reflected electric field. It is clearly seen that only the harmonic orders with n = 3m 1 (m = 1, 2, 3, ) have been generated, while ev- ery± third one with n···= 3m is missing. As the plasma is FIG. 1. (a) Electric field waveform of the incident laser isotropic and the interaction is at normal incidence, this pulses propagating along the x axis, composed of two-color unique harmonic feature can be explained by the sym- (fundamental frequency and its second harmonic) counterro- metry of the driving field as follows. We follow the argu- tating circularly polarized fields. (b) The corresponding high ments of Kfir et al[29] and Pisanty et al[34]. The laser harmonic spectrum from surface plasmas. field vector, rotated by 120◦ per cycle in the polarization plane, satisfies, L ˆ L the same plane but rotate in opposite directions: E (t + T0/3) = R(2π/3)E (t), (2) 1 ◦ iω0t 2iω0t ˆ E(t)= (E1e eˆ− + E2e eˆ+)+ c.c., (1) where R(2π/3) is the 120 rotation operator. Assuming 2i the emitted harmonic field conforms to the same dynam- ical symmetry and by taking Fourier transform, we can where eˆ± = (eˆ ieˆ )/√2 with eˆ and eˆ the unit vectors y z y z obtain the spectral field of the nth-order harmonic, EHω , along y- and z-axis,± respectively. The three-dimensional n (3D) electric field waveform is shown in Fig. 1(a), where satisfying the following eigenvalue equation − the intensity ratio of the two driving frequencies I2ω/Iω = 2πin/3EHω ˆ EHω 21 2 21 e n = R(2π/3) n . (3) 0.5 with Iω = 2.8 10 W/cm and I2ω = 1.4 10 2 × × W/cm . The Lissajous figure projected in the y z po- −2πin/3EHω − The solutions are (1) n =3m+1, so that e n = larization plane (in gray) displays a characteristic feature e−2πi/3EHω and (2) n =3m 1, so that e−2πin/3EHω = of threefold spatio-temporal symmetry. The electric field n − n e+2πi/3EHω . Apart from these two sets of harmonic or- experienced by the plasma electrons acts roughly as three n ◦ ders, the harmonic orders with n = 3m do not satisfy LP pulses rotated by 120 three times per optical cycle. Eq. (3) and are therefore forbidden by the threefold sym- This largely modified LP field pattern can give rise to metry. harmonic emission as will be shown later. The temporal The preceding selection rules are also consistent with intensity profile has a Gaussian envelope with a full-width the conservation laws for energy, parity and spin angular at half-maximum pulse duration of 30 fs. The laser pulse momentum[28, 34]. Considering the HHG process in a is normally incident onto a plasma target, of which the simple photon-exchange picture, conservation of energy peak density is n = 200n and the thickness is 200 nm. 0 c implies each harmonic frequency can be expressed in the Here n = m ω2/4πe2 is the plasma critical density with c e 0 form of respect to the fundamental laser frequency. An exponen- tial density ne(x) = n0 exp(x/Ls) exits in the front sur- H Ω(n ,n ) = n1 ω0 + n2 2ω0, (4) face of the plasma slab, where the preplasma scale length 1 2 · · Ls = 0.01λ0. The ions are taken to be immobile. The where n1 and n2 are integers. Applying parity operation simulation cell size is λ0/1000, and each cell is filled with on both the incoming and outgoing photons, we have 100 macroparticles. An absorption boundary condition is adopted for both fields and particles. P [h(ΩH )]= 1; (5) (n1,n2) − 3 FIG. 3. Polarization plane projections of the laser electric fields generated with intensity ratios (a) I2ω/Iω = 0.0, (b) 21 2 I2ω/Iω = 0.1, (c) I2ω/Iω = 0.5, and (d) I2ω/Iω = 2.0. The total intensity is kept constant (Iω + I2ω = 4.2 × 10 W/cm ). (e)-(h) The generated harmonic spectra corresponding to the lasers of panels (a)-(d).