The next generation of laser intensities, say a factor of 1000 more intense than current laser intensities, would both open up new avenues of fundamental research and give rise to new applications. The current technology is limited by the material properties of gratings and amplifiers. But optical elements made out of plasma do not suffer this limitation. Hence, the next generation of lasers almost certainly should involve plasma technology. The research objective of this project is thus to identify plasma-based mechanisms that compress laser pulses, to evaluate experimental progress in this area, and to identify the experiments that will retire the key uncertainties. This project will consider both compression in the micron wavelength optical regime as well as the extension of these effects to sub-micron wavelengths, where alternative compression techniques fail at even lower intensities.
The broader impacts of this project lie beyond simply predicting new plasma effects and in building a much more powerful laser. As an enabling technology, the broader impact of this project lies in how various subfields of physics might utilize the next generation of lasers. Apart from the opportunities at high intensity in probing strong field effects, there is the derivative technology that higher intensities invariably enable shorter durations. Thus the next generation of intensities will usher in as well the next generation of pulse durations, into the sub-attosecond regimes, thereby providing the time-resolution that could enable the probing of, for example, nuclear phenomena.
