Timothy Araujo, UT-Austin 

"Raman-Shifted Light Probes for Improved Characterization of LWFA"

Abstract: Compact Solid-state Raman shifters have been widely used to spectrally extend the emission from a laser. This can be implemented in a chirped pulse laser system to obtain stokes and anti-stokes components which can be used as longitudinal probes in Laser Wakefield experiments. Not only does this provide discrimination between the probe and the supercontinuum that the pump generates but also leads to less pump-probe walk-off and, thus, reduced temporal blurring of Wakefield. Stokes shifted probes also take advantage of the wavelength dependance of the Cotton Mouton Effect in line-integrated electron density measurements of Wakefield.