The Microfabricated Alkali Vapor Cell with High Hermeticity for Chip-Scale Atomic Clock

Herein, a microfabricated millimeter-level vapor alkali cell with a high hermeticity is fabricated through a wet etching and single-chip anodic bonding process. The vapor cell, containing Rb and N2, was investigated in a coherent population trapping (CPT) setup for the application of a chip-scale atomic clock (CSAC). The contrast of CPT resonance is up to 1.1% within the only 1 mm length of light interacting with atom. The effects of some critical external parameters on the CPT resonance, such as laser intensity, cell temperature, and buffer gas pressure, are thoroughly studied and optimized. The improved microfabricated vapor cell also exhibited great potential for other chip-scale atomic devices.

Nonlinear Mixing of Two Laser Beams and THz Plasmons Generation in Graphene Coated Optical Fibre

Graphene is a most suitable material for Terahertz (THz) radiation generation. An efficient mechanism of THz surface plasmons (THz SPs) generation in graphene coated optical fibre by nonlinear mixing of two laser beams is proposed. The graphene coated fiber supports THz SPs with plasmon resonance in the THz regime and controllable by thickness of graphene and radius of optical fibre. The laser beams exert a difference frequency ponderomotive force on the electrons of the graphene. This ponderomotive force induces a nonlinear current in graphene which driving the difference frequency THz SPs. The normalized amplitude of THz SPs decreases with frequency as the nonlinear coupling gets weaker. The efficiency of the device is around 0.01% at a laser intensity of 3x1014 W/cm2. This scheme will be useful making the compact THz radiation source and THz plasmon sensor.

Dynamics of ultrafast heated radiative plasmas driven by petawatt laser light

A relativistic petawatt laser light can heat heavy metals over keV temperature isochorically and ionize them almost fully. Copious hard X-rays are emitted from the high-Z hot plasma which acts as X-ray sources, while they work as a cooling process of the plasma. The cooling process can affect on the creation of high energy density plasma via the interaction, however, the details are unknown. The X-ray spectrum depends on the plasma temperature, so that it is worthwhile to investigate the radiation cooling effects. We here study the isochoric heating of a solid silver foil irradiated by relativistic laser lights with a help of particle-in-cell simulations including Coulomb collisions, ionizations, and radiation processes. We have conducted a parameter survey varying laser intensity, 1018-20 W/cm2, to check the cooling effects while keeping the incident laser energy constant. The silver plasma heated mainly by the resistive heating dissipates its energy by keV X-ray emissions in a picosecond time scale. The radiation power from the silver foil is found to be comparable to the incident laser power when the laser intensity is less than 1019 W/cm2 under the constant energy situation. The evolution of the plasma energy density inside the target is then suppressed, due to which a highly compressed collisional shock is formed at the target surface and propagates into the plasma. The radiation spectra of the keV silver plasma are also demonstrated.

Ultrafast spectroscopy of C-H vibrations in pathogenic bacteria in 3-μm spectral range

Dynamic optical density spectra were obtained under multipulse excitation of bacterial cultures of S. aureus and P. aeruginosa by 3 μm mid-infrared ultrashort laser pulses, corresponding to the vibrational excitation of the C–H bonds of the bacterial cell. These spectra demonstrated pronounced laser intensity-dependent blue spectral shift, presumably associated with the breaking of hydrogen bonds, which are responsible for the formation of secondary and tertiary protein structures.

Experimental investigation of size broadening of a Kα x-ray source produced by high intensity laser pulses

The size of a hard Kα x-ray source ($${\mathrm{E}}_{{\rm{K}}_{\rm{\alpha }}}$$ E K α = 17.48 keV) produced by a high intensity femtosecond laser interacting with a solid molybdenum target is experimentally investigated for a wide range of laser intensity (I ~ 1017–2.8 × 1019 W/cm2) and for four values of the temporal contrast ratio (6.7 × 107 < CR < 3.3 × 1010). Results point out the size enlargement of the x-ray source with the increase of laser intensity and with the deterioration of temporal contrast. It amounts up to sixteen times the laser spot size at the highest laser intensity and for the lowest temporal contrast ratio. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we evaluate the density scale length of the pre-plasma L/λ just before the main pulse peak. This allows us to show that a direct correlation with the laser absorption mechanisms is not relevant to explain the large size broadening. By varying the thickness of the molybdenum target down to 4 µm, the impact of hot electron scattering inside the solid is also proved irrelevant to explain the evolution of both the x-ray source size and the Kα photon number. We deduce that the most probable mechanism yielding to the broadening of the source size is linked to the creation of surface electromagnetic fields which confine the hot electrons at the solid surface. This assumption is supported by dedicated experiments where the evolution of the size enlargement of the x-ray source is carefully studied as a function of the laser focal spot size for the highest contrast ratio.

Quantitative fs-TALIF in high-pressure NRP discharges: Calibration using VUV absorption spectroscopy

This work presents a femtosecond two-photon absorption laser-induced fluorescence (fs-TALIF) diagnostic for measuring ground-state atomic nitrogen in nanosecond repetitively pulsed (NRP) discharges. Absolute atom density is obtained from the TALIF signal via a novel calibration technique based on one-photon direct absorption measurements performed in a low-pressure DC discharge. The VUV measurements were done at the Soleil synchrotron facility using the high-resolution Fourier-transform spectrometer (minimum linewidth Δ̃ = 0.08 cm-1). The main goal of this work was to develop a quench-free diagnostic technique, which would allow measurements at elevated pressures with high spatial and temporal resolution. Here fs-TALIF measurements of N(4S) are demonstrated in the NRP post-discharge between 1-500 μs after the nanosecond high-voltage pulse. A maximum number density of N-atoms of × − was measured at 1 μs after the pulse when the discharge was operated at 1 bar in pure nitrogen. This corresponds to a dissociation fraction of ~ 0.1 %. The fs-TALIF technique at high laser intensity regime (> 1 TW cm-2) calibrated using VUV absorption was compared with the fs-TALIF at low laser intensity regime (< 100 MW cm-2) calibrated via the well-established non-saturated TALIF technique using krypton as an etalon gas. It was found that the two measurements of N(4S) in the NRP post-discharge agree within a factor of 3. Importantly, the limit of detection of the fs-TALIF at high laser intensity regime was determined to be ()~ e 1/. This is approximately one order of magnitude better than previously reported by ns-TALIF in low-pressure discharges.

Laser Intensity Profile Based Terahertz Field Enhancement from a Mixture of Nano-Particles Embedded in a Gas

Nano-particle embedded system plays an importance in developing of future terahertz (THz) radiation source for real-world applications. The laser interactions with nanoparticle embedded system can produce a wide range of THz radiation due to plasma oscillations excitation. We investigate THz field generation from the laser-beat wave interaction with a mixture of spherical and cylindrical graphite nanoparticles (NPs) in argon gas. Different laser intensity distributions such as Gaussian, cosh-Gaussian, flat-top and ring shape laser pulses have been studied in this work. The relevant plasmon resonance conditions with appropriate symmetry of spherical nanoparticles (SNPs) and cylindrical nanoparticles (CNPs) are discussed. THz field is enhanced upto the order of when the laser intensity redistributes along the polarization direction for a ring shape field envelope.