Photon deceleration in plasma wakes generates single-cycle relativistic tunable infrared pulses.

Availability of relativistically intense, single-cycle, tunable infrared sources will open up new areas of relativistic nonlinear optics of plasmas, impulse IR spectroscopy and pump-probe experiments in the molecular fingerprint region. However, generation of such pulses is still a challenge by current methods. Recently, it has been proposed that time dependent refractive index associated with laser-produced nonlinear wakes in a suitably designed plasma density structure rapidly frequency down-converts photons. The longest wavelength photons slip backwards relative to the evolving laser pulse to form a single-cycle pulse within the nearly evacuated wake cavity. This process is called photon deceleration. Here, we demonstrate this scheme for generating high-power (~100 GW), near single-cycle, wavelength tunable (3-20 µm), infrared pulses using an 810 nm drive laser by tuning the density profile of the plasma. We also demonstrate that these pulses can be used to in-situ probe the transient and nonlinear wakes themselves.