A laser beam can be focused through a cloud of plasma that is thousands of times more heat resistant than any solid mirror.
Conventional glass optics melt when they are hit with high-powered laser pulses, which limits how powerful we can make them. These new plasma transmission gratings act like mirrors but can survive extreme energy levels without breaking. This discovery could allow for the creation of lasers with exawatt peak power, which is far beyond current limits. It effectively turns a gas of charged particles into a precision optical tool for high-energy physics. This shift could help us reach the intensities needed to pull particles out of empty space.
Dispersive Properties of Plasma Diffraction Gratings: Towards Plasma-Based Laser Pulse Compression
arXiv · 2604.27165
The standard architecture for a high-peak-power femtosecond laser is chirped pulse amplification using diffraction gratings for compression; the damage threshold of the compression gratings limits current lasers to multi-petawatt peak power. Plasma gratings have orders-of-magnitude higher damage tolerance than conventional optics, so plasma gratings with sufficiently high optical quality could allow the construction of ultra-high-power femtosecond lasers. Here, we present experimental measuremen