Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 223, 1181-1188 (2014)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2014-02171-5

Regular Article

Single cycle thin film compressor opening the door to Zeptosecond-Exawatt physics

¹ IZEST, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France
² Institute of Applied Physics RAS, 46 Ul'yanov Street, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
³ University of Nizhni Novgorod, 23 Prospekt Gagarina, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Received: 13 March 2014
Revised: 24 March 2014
Published online: 4 June 2014

Abstract

This article demonstrates a new compression scheme that has the potential to compress a high energy pulse as high as a few hundred Joules in a pulse as short as one optical cycle at 0.8 μm producing a true ultra-relativistic λ³ pulse. This pulse would have a focused intensity of 10²⁴ W/cm² or a₀ of 1000. On interaction with a solid target, this pulse could form an efficient, 10%, relativistic mirror that could further compress the pulse to the atto-zeptosecond regime, with an upshifted wavelength of 1–10 keV. This technique could be a watershed enabling the compression of petawatt pulses into the exawatt and zeptosecond regime possible.