CUOS Seminar: Structuring Light: The Next Frontier in Laser-Plasma Interactions

Abstract:

The spatiotemporal shaping of ultra-fast (<100 fs) light pulses has emerged as a powerful and potentially transformative approach to generating, probing, and manipulating matter. By combining spectral and spatial phase shaping techniques, a vast array of novel laser pulses can be engineered, featuring arbitrary intensity and phase profiles in both space and time.

While such techniques were once limited to low-power systems, recent advances in high-power beam manipulation and novel optics have extended spatiotemporal structuring into the relativistic regime. This development opens new frontiers in laser-plasma physics. In particular, high-intensity pulses carrying time-varying orbital angular momentum (OAM) can drive helical plasma waves, generate kilo-Tesla-scale magnetic fields, and enhance schemes for proton acceleration.

In this seminar, I will introduce the physics and fabrication of these structured beams, their interaction with plasmas, and highlight emerging applications including magnetic field generation, compact particle acceleration, and the control of laser-plasma instabilities.

Pizza will be served!