Abstract

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.

© 2020 Optical Society of America

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

Spencer W. Jolly
Opt. Lett. 44(7) 1833-1836 (2019)

Laser microprocessing of metal surfaces using a tightly focused radially polarized beam

Yuichi Kozawa, Masaki Sato, Yuuki Uesugi, and Shunichi Sato
Opt. Lett. 45(22) 6234-6237 (2020)

Radially polarized symmetric Airy beam

Chuangjie Xu, Hongcheng Hu, Yujun Liu, and Dongmei Deng
Opt. Lett. 45(6) 1451-1454 (2020)

Single-scan, dual-functional interferometer for fast spatio-temporal characterization of few-cycle pulses

Y. F. Chen, Z. Y. Huang, D. Wang, Y. Zhao, J. H. Fu, M. Pang, Y. X. Leng, and Z. Z. Xu
Opt. Lett. 45(18) 5081-5084 (2020)

Partially coherent radially polarized circular Airy beam

Tong Li, Dongmei Li, Xian Zhang, Kaikai Huang, and Xuanhui Lu
Opt. Lett. 45(16) 4547-4550 (2020)