Manipulating intense laser pulses by plasma Bragg gratings

Propagation of ultrashort intense laser pulses in a plasma Bragg grating induced by two intersecting laser pulses is studied. Such a plasma grating exhibits an ultra-wide photonic bandgap, near which the strong dispersion appears. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations show the light speed reduction, pulse stretching, chirped pulse compression, and fast compression of Bragg grating solitons in the plasma grating. The nonlinear coupled-mode theory agrees well with the PIC results. Since the plasma grating can support an ultrahigh damage threshold, it can be a novel photonic device to manipulate extremely intense femtosecond laser pulses. (authors)