Fig. 4: Intensity envelopes of incident, reflected and transmitted pulses.

Optimised incident (dashed red) and reflected/transmitted (dot-dashed blue) pulses and the plasma photonic structure (solid green). The colour-coded arrows indicate the propagation direction of the pulses and the plasma grating is shown at the time of reflection. a Plasma photonic structure resulting in  > 99% total energy reflected. b Plasma photonic structure resulting in 173% peak intensity of the reflected pulse, due to pulse compression. c Plasma photonic structure acting as a beam-splitter, resulting in  ≈ 50% total energy reflected and transmitted.