Nobel Lecture: Extreme light physics and application^*

Figure 1

Laser intensity vs years.

Figure 2

Amplifier efficiency. This illustrates the importance for the input pulse fluence $F_{\text{pulse}}$ to be a few times the saturation fluence $F_{\mathrm{sat}}$ to obtain a good extraction efficiency.

Figure 3

The intensity dependence of the index of refraction will create spatial variation of the laser beam intensity, producing undesirable filaments and hot spot.

Figure 4

Chirped pulse amplification concept. To minimize nonlinear effects the pulse is first stretched several thousand times lowering the intensity accordingly without changing the input fluence $\mathrm{J}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$. The pulse is next amplified by a factor of ${10}^6–{10}^{12}$ and is then recompressed by a factor of several thousand times closer to its initial value.

Figure 5

Treacy and Martinez grating arrangements. The Martinez grating pair used as a stretcher and Treacy grating pair used as a compressor. It was discovered and demonstrated by [90] that these two grating arrangements are in fact matched over all orders. The pulse can be stretched and recompressed arbitrarily keeping the initial pulse unchanged. This grating arrangement is used in most CPA systems.

Figure 6

The CAN system is a fiber-laser based system built out of thousands of fiber lasers coherently added to increase the average power and pulse energy linearly. The fiber laser offers excellent efficiency ($>30\%$) thanks to laser-diode pumping and provides a much larger surface cooling area, therefore making operation at high peak power and high average power possible with good efficiency and pristine beam quality.

Figure 7

World map of laser with peak power $>100\mathrm{TW}$.

Figure 8

World map of laser with peak power 1 PW.

Figure 9

OPCPA concept. In the OPCPA the pulse is amplified by optical parametric amplification instead of regular optical amplification. Note that for efficiency the pump pulse and the stretched pulse must have approximately the same duration and the same spatial extend.

Figure 10

This element uses a uniform thickness plastic element of around 0.5 mm. An incident flat top pulse will induce a uniform self-phase modulation across the element. After spectral broadening the pulse is compressed by two chirped mirrors to a near single-cycle pulse into a 2.1 fs after two compression stages.

Figure 11

The pulse is focused on ${\lambda }^2$ and creates a mirror with an indentation deforms due to (a). As it moves relativistically, it provides an isolated individual pulse (b), (c). (d) is the lineout through pulse one of (a).

Figure 12

[78] predicts a pulse duration scaling like $T=600(\mathrm{attosecond})/a_0$.

Figure 13

The laser wakefield acceleration concept relies on the very large radiation pressure inducing a plasma wave. Electrons will be trapped in the wave and accelerated to energy of $\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{cm}$, 1000 times greater than conventional technology.

Figure 14

In this regime for intensity in the ${10}^{23}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$, the radiation pressure is dominant and scales with the laser-pulse energy.

Figure 15

In the single-cycle regime the acceleration efficiency of ions varies sharply. The fewer number of cycles translates into a larger laser vector potential and yields higher proton cutoff energy. The proton energy is increased by reducing the number of cycles from $\tau =16T$ (black curve) where $T$ is the period to $\tau =4T$ (blue curve). In particular, with the single-cycle pulse (red curve), the cutoff energy of the ions is increased by a significant amount and becomes quickly relativistic.

Figure 16

Electron density around the amine group of phenylalanine changes sign in $\sim 2\mathrm{fs}$.

Figure 17

Accelerating mirror as an analog black hole. Left: Black hole Hawking evaporation and the trapping of the partner modes near the horizon. Right: An accelerating mirror also has a horizon and can also emit Hawking particles and trap their partner modes. The analogy between these two systems may be appreciated via Einstein’s equivalence principle.

Figure 18

The radiotoxicity of the spent nuclear fuel may be reduced from the level of no reprocessed case to a level reduced by about 1000 times if we transmute the spent fuel. This is why a substantial benefit may be gained by the transmutation ([45]; [81]).

Figure 19

Neutrons are generated by an OPCPA laser irradiation of a nanometric deuteron foil, deuteron acceleration and interaction with tritiated solid target. From [135].

Figure 20

Intrastomal cut showing the importance of the pulse shortness: (a) 50 ps, (b) 100 fs. The picosecond laser cut is of poorer quality, manual dissection required to produce corneal cuts. The femtosecond laser produces a contiguous cut with surface quality similar to mechanical blades.

Figure 21

Femtosecond intrastromal scalpel.

Figure 22

Today corneal transplant with trephine can only do a full thickness transplant. However, a femtosecond scalpel makes possible an interlocking graft. It shows also that a femtosecond laser can make a lamellar slice possible.