Laser-plasma mirrors: from electron acceleration to harmonics generation

ORAL

Abstract

Accelerating electrons in the $>10\,$TV/m fields inside an ultrashort ultraintense laser pulse has been a long-standing goal in experimental physics, motivated by promising theoretical predictions. The biggest hurdle was to have electrons injected in the center of the laser pulse. Recent experimental and numerical results\footnote{M. Th\'evenet, \textbf{Nat. Phys. 12}, 355 (2015)} showed that this problem could be solved using a plasma mirror, i.e. an overdense plasma with a sharp (

*funded by the European Research Council, contract No. 306708, ERC Starting Grant FEMTOELEC

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Authors

  • Maxence Th\'evenet

    • Laboratoire d'Optique Appliqu\'ee, Palaiseau

  • Ma\"imouna Bocoum

    • Laboratoire d'Optique Appliqu\'ee, Palaiseau

  • J\'er\^ome Faure

    • Laboratoire d'Optique Appliqu\'ee, Palaiseau

  • Adrien Leblanc

    • SPAM, CEA-IRAMIS

  • Henri Vincenti

    • SPAM, CEA-IRAMIS

  • Fabien Qu\'er\'e

    • SPAM, CEA-IRAMIS