Electron acceleration driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses

Highly collimated intense radiation from electron collisions with a tightly focused linearly polarized laser pulse

The use of high-energy radiation generated by electron collisions with a laser pulse is an effective method to treat cancer. In this paper, the spatial properties of radiation produced by electron collisions with a tightly focused linearly polarized laser pulse are investigated. Theoretical derivations and numerical simulations within the framework of classical electrodynamics show that the stronger the laser intensity, the higher the initial electron energy, and the longer the laser pulse, which can produce greater radiation power. An increase in the laser intensity expands the range of electron radiation and therefore reduces the collimation of the radiation. The collimation in the radiation is better when colliding with an electron of higher initial energy. The phenomenon that the radiated power of the electron varies periodically with the initial phase of the laser is also found. The results of this paper have important implications to produce strongly radiating and highly collimated rays.

Self-starting high-order mode oscillation fiber laser

In this paper, we proposed and demonstrated two kinds of all few-mode fiber lasers with self-starting high-order mode (HOM) oscillation. The fundamental mode can be completely suppressed by using a bandpass filter with a few-mode fiber pigtail. In the continuous-wave (CW) regime, the fiber laser directly oscillates in HOM with a signal-to-noise ratio as high as 70 dB, and the slope efficiency is up to 46%. The self-starting HOM mode-locked pulse can be easily achieved by employing a saturable absorber. The HOM oscillation pulsed fiber laser stably operates at 1063.72 nm with 3dB of 0.05 nm, which can deliver cylindrical vector beams with a high mode purity of over 98%. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration for self-starting HOM direct oscillation in stable CW and pulsed operation states without additional adjustment. This compact and stable HOM fiber laser with a simple structure can have important applications in materials processing, optical trapping, and spatiotemporal nonlinear optics. Moreover, this work may offer a promising approach to realizing high-power fiber laser with arbitrary HOMs stable output.

High-power cylindrical vector beam fiber laser based on an all-polarization-maintaining structure

We propose and demonstrate an all-polarization-maintaining (PM) high-power cylindrical vector beam (CVB) fiber laser based on the principle of mode superposition. The non-degenerated LPy 11a is generated from the oscillator with the maximum power of 11.9W, whose slope efficiency is 24.4%. Then the stable single TE₀₁ vector beam is achieved by the superposition of LPy 11a and LPx 11b in an all-PM architecture, its output power is 3.1W and mode purity of 91.2%. Due to the all-PM architecture, our configuration is free of adjusting polarization controller (PC) and reliable during long-term operation. This laser could be used as a high-power CVBs source for a wide range of applications towards scientific research and industrial field.

Generation of cylindrical vector beams in a linear cavity mode-locked fiber laser based on nonlinear multimode interference

In this paper, a linear cavity mode-locked pulsed fiber laser generating cylindrical vector beams (CVBs) is proposed and demonstrated based on a nonlinear multimode interference. A homemade long-period fiber grating with a broad bandwidth of 121 nm is used as a mode converter inside the cavity. The saturable absorber was formed by single-mode fiber-graded index multimode fiber-single mode fiber (SMF-GIMF-SMF) structure. By controlling the pump power, the operation states are switchable among continuous-wave, Q-switched mode-locked (QML), and mode-locked regimes. The repetition rate of the QML CVB pulse envelope varies from 57.4 kHz to 102.7 kHz at the pump range of 118 to 285 mW. When increasing pump power to 380 mW, mode-locked CVB pulse repetition rate of 3.592 MHz, and pulse duration of 4.62 ns are achieved. In addition, the maximum single-pulse envelope energy can reach 510 nJ, and 142 mW average-power CVBs with a slope efficiency of as high as 20.2% can be obtained. Moreover, azimuthally and radially polarized beams can be obtained with mode purity over 95% in different operating regimes. The proposed fiber laser has a simple structure, and the operation is controllable in both temporal and spatial domains, which presents a flexible pulsed CVB source for application of laser processing, time or mode division multiplexing system, and spatiotemporal nonlinear optics.

Acceleration of electrons by tightly focused azimuthally polarized ultrashort pulses in a vacuum

Using the complex sink-source model (CSSM) and the Hertz potential method (HPM), the electromagnetic field expressions of tightly focused ultrashort azimuthally polarized pulses can be obtained. By numerically solving the relativistic Newton-Lorentz equation, the acceleration and confinement of electrons by the sub-cycle and few-cycle azimuthally polarized ultrashort pulses in vacuum are studied. Considering the radiation reaction force, it is found that electrons with an initial kinetic energy of less than 1MeV can be accelerated to hundreds of MeV and can be confined in the range of less than 1 micron for hundreds of femtoseconds in the direction perpendicular to the pulse propagation (transverse direction) by the pulses. With the increase of the beam waist and the intensity of the pulse, the electrons can obtain the exit kinetic energy exceeding 1GeV. When electrons are accelerated by the few-cycle pulses, the confined time of the electrons in the transverse direction is three times longer than that of the sub-cycle pulse. When the initial velocity of the electron points to a point in front of the focus, the electron can obtain the maximum exit kinetic energy. The change of the angular frequency corresponding to the spectral peak of the electromagnetic radiation from the electron acceleration with the electric field amplitude parameter E₀ of the pulse is studied. The phenomena of redshift and blueshift of the spectrum peak frequency of the electron radiation with the E₀ are found. These studies provide the methods to confine the movement of electrons in certain directions and accelerate electrons in the same time.

Breaking the symmetry to structure light

We show that by breaking the symmetry of a beam subjected to tight focusing, namely by obscuring half of it or, equivalently, shifting the beam away from the lens axis, it is possible to obtain novel light properties in the focal spot which, to the best of our knowledge, have not been observed before. For example, a linearly polarized beam half-obstructed or shifted from the axis generates longitudinal and transverse electrical field components, both of which peak on-axis. The ratio of the intensities of these two components can be tuned by changing the shift distance, the size, and the azimuthal location of the displaced incoming beam. Moreover, such symmetry breaking of a linearly polarized beam acts as a catalyst for producing distributions of circular polarization/longitudinal spin angular momentum, as well as orbital angular momentum, in the focal plane. The simple method for generating co-incident longitudinal and transverse components with a controllable ratio may find applications in laser machining, particle manipulation, etc.

On the importance of frequency-dependent beam parameters for vacuum acceleration with few-cycle radially polarized laser beams

Tightly focused, ultrashort radially polarized laser beams have a large longitudinal field, which provides a strong motivation for direct particle acceleration and manipulation in a vacuum. The broadband nature of these beams means that chromatic properties of propagation and focusing are important to consider. We show via single-particle simulations that using the correct frequency-dependent beam parameters is imperative, especially as the pulse duration decreases to the few-cycle regime. The results with different spatio-spectral amplitude profiles show either a drastic increase or decrease of the final accelerated electron energy depending on the shape, motivating both proper characterization and potentially a route to optimization.

Stable generation of cylindrical vector beams with an all-fiber laser using polarization-maintaining and ring-core fibers

An all-fiber laser using polarization-maintaining and ring-core fibers that are capable of automatically generating stable TE₀₁ and TM₀₁ modes is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. Two vector-mode coupling long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) fabricated by a high-frequency CO₂ laser are used in the fiber laser to realize efficient coupling between HE₁₁ mode and TE₀₁/TM₀₁ mode. The polarization dependence of the LPFGs is simulated using the coupled-mode theory and verified by experiments. A ring-core fiber is employed to support the stable propagation of TE₀₁ and TM₀₁ modes. By carefully aligning the polarization direction of the input light, the mode coupling ratios of both LPFGs exceed 15 dB. The mode purities of TE₀₁ and TM₀₁ modes are 92.4% and 97.3%, respectively. Owing to the all-polarization-maintaining structure, the laser output is highly stable under environmental disturbance. This laser can be used as a stable cylindrical vector beam source for a wide range of applications, including surface plasmon excitation, optical tweezers, high-resolution metrology and so on.

Improving purity of the radially polarized beam generated by a geometric phase retarder with spatially variable retardance

Geometric phase retarders-such as q-plates and S-waveplates-have found wide applications due to simplicity of operational principles and flexibility for the generation of azimuthally symmetric polarization states and optical vortices. Ellipticity of the polarization vector and phase of the generated beam strongly depend on the retardation of the plate. Real devices usually have retardation value slightly different than the nominated one. Previously unattended perturbation of the retardation leads to asymmetry in intensity distribution and variation of ellipticity of the local polarization vector of the generated beam. We elucidate that controlled and intentionally driven azimuthally variable, oscillating perturbation of the retardation reveals the possibility to avoid distortions in the generated beam and leads to the recovery of the symmetrically distributed intensity and polarization (with zero ellipticity) of the beam. Described recovery of the desired polarization state could find application for generation of the high purity beam with azimuthally symmetric polarization, in which the local polarization ellipse has zero ellipticity.

Analytical inversion of the focusing of high-numerical-aperture aplanatic systems

We propose a method for an analytical inversion of the electric and magnetic fields at the focus of a high-NA aplanatic system to obtain incident light beam distribution. Our approach is based on an inverse Fourier transform of the Richards-Wolf formalism for targeted longitudinal fields along the radial or axial directions at the non-paraxial focus. Analytical solutions are discussed for both axial and radial focal fields for a radially polarized incident light beam, and a criterion is defined to access a physically valid solution. We also validate the method according to results found in the literature. Finally, we show how the method can be generalized to other incident field distributions.

Influence of longitudinal chromatism on vacuum acceleration by intense radially polarized laser beams

We report with single-particle simulations that longitudinal chromatism, a commonly occurring spatio-temporal coupling in ultrashort laser pulses, can have a significant influence in the longitudinal acceleration of electrons via high-power, tightly-focused, and radially polarized laser beams. This effect can be advantageous, and even more so when combined with small values of temporal chirp. However, the effect can also be highly destructive when the magnitude and sign of the longitudinal chromatism is not ideal, even at very small magnitudes. This motivates the characterization and understanding of the driving laser pulses and further study of the influence of similar low-order spatial-temporal couplings on such acceleration.

Electron acceleration driven by sub-cycle and single-cycle focused optical pulse with radially polarized electromagnetic field

The space-time properties of the expressions of sub-cycle and single-cycle focused optical pulses with radially polarized electromagnetic field based on the Sink-Source model are studied. The self-induced blue shift of the center frequency of spectrum in the center of the pulse field is found to have an important impact on the electrons acceleration. When the electrons approach to the center of pulse, the electrons will obtain a large kinetic energy gain in a short time. The effect of radiation-reaction force can't be ignored if the net kinetic energy gain of electrons is more than GeVs. The electrons will deviate from the original acceleration channel and the gain of kinetic energy that electrons may gain will be greatly reduced if the radiation-reaction effect is considered. In contrast to the few-cycle laser pulse accelerating electrons, the gain of kinetic energy obtained by electrons is a few times higher and the corresponding peak optical power is one order of magnitude lower in the case of the sub-cycle laser pulses accelerating electrons. The maximal kinetic energy gain of electrons is robust against the variation of the incident angles.

Tighter focus for ultrashort pulse vector light beams: change of the relative contribution of different field components to the focal spot upon pulse shortening

We investigate the focusing of Poisson-spectrum few cycle pulsed light beams for linear, circular, azimuthal, and radial input polarizations with and without a first-order vortex. It is shown that, for all the considered cases, the focal spot is tighter when compared to long pulses due to the increased blue frequency content in the ultrashort pulses spectrum. More significantly, we show, for what we believe is the first time, that upon pulse shortening different focused beam vector components associated with different Bessel functions J₀ and J₁ undergo a change in the relative weight of their respective contribution to the focal spot size. This effect is caused by the different spectral dependencies of J₀ and J₁ near the focus. This newly discovered property of broadband ultrashort pulses could be exploited in light-matter interactions advantageously.

Laser-Induced Linear-Field Particle Acceleration in Free Space

Linear-field particle acceleration in free space (which is distinct from geometries like the linac that requires components in the vicinity of the particle) has been studied for over 20 years, and its ability to eventually produce high-quality, high energy multi-particle bunches has remained a subject of great interest. Arguments can certainly be made that linear-field particle acceleration in free space is very doubtful given that first-order electron-photon interactions are forbidden in free space. Nevertheless, we chose to develop an accurate and truly predictive theoretical formalism to explore this remote possibility when intense, few-cycle electromagnetic pulses are used in a computational experiment. The formalism includes exact treatment of Maxwell’s equations and exact treatment of the interaction among the multiple individual particles at near and far field. Several surprising results emerge. We find that electrons interacting with intense laser pulses in free space are capable of gaining substantial amounts of energy that scale linearly with the field amplitude. For example, 30 keV electrons (2.5% energy spread) are accelerated to 61 MeV (0.5% spread) and to 205 MeV (0.25% spread) using 250 mJ and 2.5 J lasers respectively. These findings carry important implications for our understanding of ultrafast electron-photon interactions in strong fields.

Energetic radially polarized few-cycle pulse compression in gas-filled hollow-core fiber

The compression of high-energy, radially polarized pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber (HCF) is theoretically studied. The simulation results indicate that a 40-fs input pulse can be compressed to a full-width at half-maximum of less than 9 fs when the pulse energy reaches 7.0 mJ with a transmission efficiency of more than 67% after propagating through a 1-m-long, 500-μm diameter HCF filled with neon. Furthermore, the spatio-temporal intensity distributions of the compressed pulses with different initial input energies are studied, and the numerical results indicate that the spatio-temporal intensity distributions are more uniform for lower input pulse energies.

Time behavior of focused vector beams

We elucidate the pecularities of time behavior of focused vector optical fields. In particular, for linear or radial incident polarizations, we demonstrate explicitly the π/2 phase delay between transverse and longitudinal components of the field generated at the focus, i.e., their appearance and reaching the peak at different instances of the optical period. For clockwise circular polarization with -1 order vortex the longitudinal component is in phase with the transverse one. For clockwise circular polarization, the same circular polarization with a +1 order vortex and for radial polarization with +1 order vortex the longitudinal field component has a constant, azimuthally rotating in time shape and it coexists with one or simultaneously with both x and y field components. In addition, we show that the recently studied ultrafast rotating dipole produced by focusing an azimuthally polarized vortex beam [Opt. Lett.41, 1605 (2016)OPLEDP0146-959210.1364/OL.41.001605] differs significantly from a pattern obtained by focusing circularly polarized light. The numerically calculated field component distributions are verified by simplifying the system with an application of a narrow ring aperture allowing precise analytical expressions to be obtained confirming the phase relations between different field components. These findings will have to be taken into account or can be taken advantage of when using vector beams in studying light-matter interactions (particle manipulation and acceleration) and especially ultrafast optical phenomena.

Ultrafast rotating dipole or propeller-shaped patterns: subwavelength shaping of a beam of light on a femtosecond time scale

We report on a remarkable property of azimuthally (radially) polarized light beams containing a vortex or an orbital angular momentum: upon tight focusing of a first-order vortex beam, the subwavelength spot has a shape of an electric (magnetic) dipole rotating at an optical frequency. For beams with a vortex of order m, the generated pattern is propeller-shaped and rotates at a 1/m fraction of the optical frequency. The applications include petahertz control of electrical or optical conductance between two electrodes or waveguides of two-terminal junctions.

Improved beam waist formula for ultrashort, tightly focused linearly, radially, and azimuthally polarized laser pulses in free space

We derive an asymptotically accurate formula for the beam waist of ultrashort, tightly focused fundamental linearly polarized, radially polarized, and azimuthally polarized modes in free space. We compute the exact beam waist via numerical cubature to ascertain the accuracy with which our formula approximates the exact beam waist over a broad range of parameters of practical interest. Based on this, we describe a method of choosing parameters in the model given the beam waist and pulse duration of a laser pulse.

Femtosecond 240-keV electron pulses from direct laser acceleration in a low-density gas

We propose a simple laser-driven electron acceleration scheme based on tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses for the production of femtosecond electron bunches with energies in the few-hundreds-of-keV range. In this method, the electrons are accelerated forward in the focal volume by the longitudinal electric field component of the laser pulse. Three-dimensional test-particle and particle-in-cell simulations reveal the feasibility of generating well-collimated electron bunches with an energy spread of 5% and a temporal duration of the order of 1 fs. These results offer a route towards unprecedented time resolution in ultrafast electron diffraction experiments.

Validity of the paraxial approximation for electron acceleration with radially polarized laser beams

In the study of laser-driven electron acceleration, it has become customary to work within the framework of paraxial wave optics. Using an exact solution to the Helmholtz equation as well as its paraxial counterpart, we perform numerical simulations of electron acceleration with a high-power TM(01) beam. For beam waist sizes at which the paraxial approximation was previously recognized valid, we highlight significant differences in the angular divergence and energy distribution of the electron bunches produced by the exact and the paraxial solutions. Our results demonstrate that extra care has to be taken when working under the paraxial approximation in the context of electron acceleration with radially polarized laser beams.