Towards the generation of petawatt near-infrared few-cycle light pulses via forward Raman amplification in plasma

Abstract: Light amplification towards extremely high power in the infrared regime remains a significant challenge due to the lack of suitable gain media. Here we propose a new scheme to amplify a laser pulse with tunable wavelengths towards extremely high power via forward Raman amplification in plasma. Different from those previously proposed schemes based upon backward Raman or Brillouin amplification, our scheme involves a pump pulse and a seed pulse co-propagating in moderate density plasma, with the phase matching conditions for forward Raman scattering fulfilled. Due to their group velocity difference in plasma, the pump with a shorter wavelength and longer duration will chase the seed and transfer energy to the latter efficiently. Analytical models both for linear and nonlinear stages of amplification as well as particle-in-cell simulation show that by employing a 1.0 $\mathrm{\mu m}$ pump laser, a 1.8 $\mathrm{\mu m}$ seed pulse can be amplified $10^4$ times in its intensity, and then self-compressed to near-single-cycle. Our scheme shows the merits of high efficiency, high compactness, and relatively easy implementation with the co-propagating configuration, which may provide a unique route towards the petawatt few-cycle infrared laser pulses.