Quantum-coherent molecular ensembles in plasma

等离子体中的量子相干分子系综

• 批准号: 0904302
• 负责人: Howard Milchberg
• 金额: $ 67.63万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0904302&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Quantum; coherent; molecular; ensembles; plasma

This award will support continued work based on the recent discovery that coherent rotational wavepackets in oxygen and nitrogen molecules in air can exert surprisingly strong control over high power femtosecond laser filamentation. The wavepackets manifest themselves in air as refractive index lenslets that propagate as quantum echo wakes following the filamenting laser pulse at its group velocity. A secondary pulse injected into these wakes, depending on the injection delay, can either be trapped and steered or scattered out of the beam axis. These results promise to allow much higher filament laser power, greatly extended filament lengths, increased electron density, and enhanced filament continuity, all essential for applications of femtosecond filaments, including terahertz generation, remote ionization, nonlinear light generation and atmospheric monitoring, and channels for electrical discharges. The proposed experiments represent a novel direction in plasma physics of some intellectual merit: the interaction of quantum coherent ensembles with plasmas. The award will also support another set of experiments in laser-nanoparticle interactions. The goal is to control the nanoplasma dynamics with the strong laser ponderomotive force, the high field analogue of inertial confinement.This highly interdisciplinary experimental and theoretical work provides an excellent training experience for graduate and undergraduate students. The physical ideas underlying the experiments, and the diagnostic techniques developed to measure ultrafast processes under extreme conditions, have a broad science and technology impact, from national defense to industry.

该奖项将支持基于最近发现的继续工作，即空气中氧和氮分子中的相干旋转波包可以对高功率飞秒激光成丝施加令人惊讶的强大控制。波包在空气中表现为折射率透镜，随着丝状激光脉冲以其群速度传播，它们作为量子回波尾迹传播。根据注入延迟的不同，注入到这些尾迹中的二次脉冲可以被捕获和引导，也可以被散射出光束轴。这些结果有望实现更高的灯丝激光功率、更长的灯丝长度、更高的电子密度和增强的灯丝连续性，所有这些都对飞秒灯丝的应用至关重要，包括太赫兹产生、远程电离、非线性光产生和大气监测，以及用于电放电的通道。提出的实验代表了等离子体物理学的一个新方向，具有一定的学术价值：量子相干系综与等离子体的相互作用。该奖项还将支持另一组激光-纳米粒子相互作用的实验。目标是利用强激光有质动力来控制纳米等离子体动力学，这是惯性约束的高场模拟。这项高度跨学科的实验和理论工作为研究生和本科生提供了极好的培训经验。这些实验背后的物理思想，以及为在极端条件下测量超快过程而开发的诊断技术，具有广泛的科学和技术影响，从国防到工业。