Revolutionizing The Control Of Plasmas With Lasers

Clara Saraceno will use an ERC Consolidator Grant to develop ultrafast lasers to adjust the composition of plasmas. This will revolutionize light generation, but also other areas.

Plasmas generated with lasers are often used to generate waves in hard-to-reach areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. This requires complex and energy-intensive laser sources. Prof. Dr. Clara Saraceno, Professor of Photonics and Ultrashort Pulse Lasers at the Ruhr University Bochum, wants to break new ground: In her EXPLORE project, she is developing ultrashort pulse lasers that adapt the plasma properties so that light of previously unattainable power can be generated in an energy-saving manner using compact laser sources. She is being funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with a Consolidator Grant for five years. The grant is endowed with 2.2 million euros.

Optical materials play a crucial role in science and technology. They enable researchers around the world to manipulate light at will and reach the entire electromagnetic spectrum from X-rays to terahertz waves (THz). Plasmas are widely used as optical materials. Plasmas are energetically excited gases. However, accessing their nonlinear response requires a very high input light intensity, which is why very complex, high-energy laser systems are usually required.

EXPLORE proposes a new way to change the chemical composition of the plasma. This will be achieved using short, low-energy light pulses at very short intervals. "This will lead to new, improved and reconfigurable optical properties of the plasma," says Clara Saraceno. "With EXPLORE, we want to use these improved plasmas to generate and detect terahertz radiation, with a power that is currently impossible to achieve and with very compact laser sources."

Exploring a new research area
This would not only revolutionize light generation and nonlinear optics, but would also have enormous implications for many other areas in which atmospheric plasmas are used, for example in catalysis and atmospheric research.

"The ERC Consolidator Grant will enable me to explore a new field of research that combines plasma, materials, chemistry and laser research," says Clara Saraceno. "At the same time, it gives us the freedom to explore this risky idea with the cutting-edge tools we need to solve this complex problem."