Specular reflectivity of plasma mirrors as a function of intensity, pulse duration, and

angle of incidence
Ch. Ziener, P. S. Foster, E. J. Divall, C. J. Hooker, M. H. R. Hutchinson, A. J. Langley, and D. Neely
Citation: Journal of Applied Physics 93, 768 (2003); doi: 10.1063/1.1525062
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1525062
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/93/1?ver=pdfcov
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JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS

VOLUME 93, NUMBER 1

1 JANUARY 2003

Specular reflectivity of plasma mirrors as a function of intensity, pulse

duration, and angle of incidence
Ch. Ziener, P. S. Foster, E. J. Divall, C. J. Hooker, M. H. R. Hutchinson, A. J. Langley,
and D. Neelya)
Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX,
United Kingdom

Received 14 March 2002; accepted 8 October 2002

The specular reflectivity of plasma mirrors formed by subpicosecond pulses from a
titanium:sapphire laser has been measured for different angles of incidence and for two different
pulse lengths as a function of the laser intensity. Laser pulses with energies up to 250 mJ and pulse
durations of 90 and 500 fs were focused onto a fused silica substrate. For angles of incidence
between 6 and 45 the specular reflectivity increases to values of about 80% for intensities above
a certain threshold intensity. The threshold intensity varies with the pulse length but is nearly
independent of the angle of incidence. For very high intensities the specular reflectivity drops again
to values of only a few percent. 2003 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.1525062
If a high intensity laser interacts with a solid surface, it
creates a plasma by multiphoton or optical field ionization. If
the intensity of the laser is high enough, the ionization takes
place on the leading edge of the pulse and the rest of the
pulse interacts with the plasma. For short pulses, the plasma
does not have sufficient time to expand significantly a typical expansion velocity is 107 cm/s), causing the main part of
the laser pulse to interact with a plasma with a high electron
density gradient normal to the target surface. The main part
of the laser pulse will then be reflected specularly and have
very high reflectivity. This technique can be used for suppressing unwanted prepulses if the intensity of the laser pulse
on the plasma mirror is chosen so that only the main pulse
creates a high reflectivity plasma.13 Prepulses with lower
intensities are transmitted by the dielectric material. The fact
that the ionization process is very fast has led to the use of
plasma mirrors for measuring the pulse shape of ultrashort
pulses.4 Plasma mirrors have also been used to spatially
filter5 or mode lock6 laser pulses. Although the reflectivity
and absorption of subpicosecond pulses have been investigated for several years,7,8 there are very few papers that deal
with dielectric target materials suitable for plasma
mirrors.2,9,10 Most investigations have been made either with
metallic or semiconductor targets.1113 To our knowledge no
experiments have been published where the specular reflectivity of dielectric surfaces for different pulse durations and
different angles of incidence was investigated.
In this communication we report measurements of the
specular reflectivity of plasma mirrors formed by subpicosecond pulses from a titanium:sapphire laser for different
angles of incidence and for two different pulse lengths as a
function of the laser intensity. These data are necessary for
the design of future experiments that involve the use of
plasma mirrors. In our experiment we used a focusing optic
with a large F-number (F/17, giving a cone angle of only
a

Electronic mail: dneely@rl.ac.uk

3.4 to avoid averaging over a large range of different

angles of incidence which occurs if focusing optics with
smaller F numbers are used.
The experiments were carried out with the ASTRA laser
at the Central Laser Facility.14 This titanium:sapphire laser
utilizes chirped pulse amplification and delivers up to 300 mJ
in 60 fs to the target. The stretched laser pulses are recompressed by means of a vacuum compressor which is directly
linked to the target chamber. By adjusting the length of the
compressor the pulse duration was changed between 90 and
500 fs. The temporal shape of the laser pulse was diagnosed
with a scanning third-order autocorrelator. In the case of the
shorter pulse, the intensity 1 ps before the peak of the laser
pulse was 105 times the peak intensity. No distinct
prepulses with a contrast ratio 105 have been found
within 50 ps of the laser pulse. The contrast ratio of the
preceding unamplified pulse 14 ns before the main pulse was
measured to be 4108 .
The laser beam with a diameter of 60 mm was focused
by an off-axis parabolic mirror with a focal length of 1016
mm. The focal spot was imaged onto a charge coupled device CCD camera and measured to be 20 m26 m.
Thus the maximum intensity on the target was 4
1017 W/cm2 . The intensity on the target could be varied in
two different ways. First, the target could be moved out of
focus to increase the area and decrease the intensity. Second,
the energy of the laser could be adjusted by rotating a half
wave plate which is mounted between two polarizers. For
each shot, the energy transmitted through a high reflecting
mirror was measured with a calibrated photodiode to account
for pulse-to-pulse fluctuations. The energy reflected from the
plasma mirror was measured with a calorimeter. To avoid
damage to the calorimeter, a calibrated neutral density filter
was placed in front of it. It was carefully checked that the
transmission of the filter was constant over the whole energy
range investigated.
The target was a polished fused silica substrate mounted
on a xyz stage. It was moved after each shot to ensure that a
fresh surface was illuminated by the next shot.

0021-8979/2003/93(1)/768/3/$20.00
768
2003 American Institute of Physics
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Ziener et al.

J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 93, No. 1, 1 January 2003

FIG. 1. Specular reflectivity for a pulse duration of 90 fs and an angle of

incidence of 6. The intensity was varied by moving the target out of focus
closed squares and by decreasing the laser energy at different target positions open symbols.

In the illustrations, each data point represents a single

laser shot. No averaging was done. The specular reflectivity
of the fused silica substrate as a function of the intensity for
a pulse duration of 90 fs and an angle of incidence of 6 is
shown in Fig. 1. At intensities below 1014 W/cm2 we measured specular reflectivity of a few percent, which corresponds to the value for an uncoated fused silica substrate.
Above a threshold intensity of 1014 W/cm2 the specular reflectivity rises up to 80% at an intensity of about 3
1015 W/cm2 . It stays at this level up to 31016 W/cm2 .
For intensities above 31016 W/cm2 , fluctuation of the data
increases rapidly and the reflectivity drops eventually to values of only 10%. The threshold intensity of 1014 W/cm2
agrees very well with the damage threshold measurements of
Kautek et al.15 and of Lenzner et al.16 The rapid fall in
specular reflectivity could be due to nonspecular reflection,
scattering, or increased absorption see, for example, Ref.
12. Since the size of the calorimeter was only slightly larger
than the diameter of the beam and there was no additional
measurement of transmission and nonspecular reflection, it is
not possible to determine the reason for the decrease in
specular reflectivity. As can be seen, the specular reflectivity
for intensities below 1016 W/cm2 is independent of the way
the intensity was reduced increasing the beam diameter or
decreasing the laser energy. Thus the specular reflectivity is
independent of the spot diameter for diameters bigger than

769

FIG. 3. Specular reflectivity for a pulse duration of 90 fs and an angle of

incidence of 45. The intensity was varied by moving the target out of focus
closed squares and by decreasing the laser energy open circles.

200 m. The measurements with a pulse duration of 90 fs

and an angles of incidence of 18 Fig. 2 and 45 Fig. 3
show the same characteristics. The threshold at which the
specular reflectivity starts to increase is again at approximately 1014 W/cm2 . The intensity where the maximum of
the specular reflectivity is reached however is around 3
1015 W/cm2 . The maximum specular reflectivity measured
for 18 was 75% and for 45 it was 65%. Smaller reflectivities for larger angles of incidence have been seen in previous
measurements of various target materials. Mostly this behavior is due to increased absorption e.g., resonance absorption,
vacuum heating at higher intensities.8,12 We also carried out
measurements with a laser pulse duration of 500 fs. The
results for an angle of incidence of 6 are shown in Fig. 4
and the results for 19 in Fig. 5, respectively. The specular
reflectivity starts to increase at an intensity of about
1013 W/cm2 . This is again in very good agreement with the
damage threshold measurements.15,16 In those papers the
damage threshold for 500 fs is about a factor of 8 smaller
than in the case for 90 fs. The maximum specular reflectivity
measured was 70% for both angles of incidence. For intensities larger than a few times 1016 W/cm2 the same dropoff
in specular reflectivity as that for the 90 fs pulses was measured.
To summarize our results, we have measured the specular reflectivity of a plasma mirror for 800 nm laser pulses for
a larger number of parameters. Pulses with durations of 90
and 500 fs were focused with an F/17 off-axis parabolic

FIG. 2. Specular reflectivity for a pulse duration of 90 fs and an angle of

incidence of 18. The intensity was varied by moving the target out of focus
FIG. 4. Specular reflectivity for a pulse duration of 500 fs and an angle of
closed squares and by decreasing the laser energy at different target posiincidence of 6. The intensity was varied by moving the target out of focus
tions open symbols.
closed squares and by decreasing the laser energy open triangles.
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770

Ziener et al.

J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 93, No. 1, 1 January 2003

The authors would like to acknowledge valuable help

with engineering tasks by D. R. Neville and P. A. Brummit.

FIG. 5. Specular reflectivity for a pulse duration of 500 fs and an angle of

incidence of 19. The intensity was varied by moving the target out of focus
closed squares and by decreasing the laser energy open triangles.

mirror onto a polished fused silica target. The specular reflectivity was measured for angles of incidence from 6 to
45 and for intensities from 1012 to 41017 W/cm2 . In all
cases the specular reflectivity increases if the intensity rises
above a certain threshold intensity. The threshold intensity is
approximately 1014 W/cm2 for a pulse duration of 90 fs and
1013 W/cm2 for 500 fs pulses. This difference is in very good
agreement with previous measurements of damage thresholds for fused silica. The maximum specular reflectivity
measured was between 65% and 80%. For intensities above
51016 W/cm2 the specular reflectivity dropped very rapidly to low values. This behavior has been attributed to an
increase in nonspecular reflection and/or an increase in absorption. The measurements clearly show that for the application of plasma mirrors the intensity necessary for a high
reflectivity must be within the relatively narrow range of
about one order of magnitude.

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