Description
The use of structured light is opening exciting paths in several fields, taking advantage of the different geometrical and topological structures of these beams. This work presents recent results on the interaction of structured IR, UV, and XUV beams with plasmas. Experimental and modelling results unveil its potential applications in plasma diagnosis, in the fields of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), plasma-based lasers and Laboratory Astrophysics. Using our multiscale, multiphysics computational framework [1] it is possible to model the full process undergone by the system: plasma creation and hydrodynamic expansion; collisional and radiative processes; and the propagation and interaction of UV/XUV beams.
The presentation will focus in recent modelling and experimental results on the interaction of structured light with plasmas: the use of spatio-temporal couplings to create a flying focus and improve the amplification of High Order Harmonics (HOH) in dense plasmas [2] and boost the UV emission of nitrogen filaments; the emission and amplification of structured UV light by cavity-free nitrogen plasmas, with applications in atmospheric air lasing; and the application of HOH beams carrying OAM towards diagnosing hot, dense plasmas [3,4,5], by measuring the perturbation of the wavefront after propagation through the plasma and relating this perturbation to the electron density and its gradient.
[1] E. Oliva, et al, The European Physical Journal D, 75, 11 (2021)
[2] A. Kabacinski, et al, Nat. Phot. 17, 345-359 (2023)
[3] F. Tuitje, et al, Light: Sci Appl, 9, 1 (2020)
[4] S. López, et al, Opt. Exp., 31, 5, 8465-8478 (2023)
[5] S. López, et al, Opt. Exp., 33, 22, 46285-46303 (2025)