High-quality electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator using plasma-channel guiding
C. G. R. Geddes,C. G. R. Geddes,Cs. Toth,van J Jeroen Tilborg,van J Jeroen Tilborg,Eric Esarey,Carl Schroeder,David L. Bruhwiler,Chet Nieter,John R. Cary,Wim Leemans +10 more
TLDR
A laser accelerator that produces electron beams with an energy spread of a few per cent, low emittance and increased energy (more than 109 electrons above 80 MeV) and opens the way for compact and tunable high-brightness sources of electrons and radiation.Abstract:
Laser-driven accelerators, in which particles are accelerated by the electric field of a plasma wave (the wakefield) driven by an intense laser, have demonstrated accelerating electric fields of hundreds of GV m-1 (refs 1–3) These fields are thousands of times greater than those achievable in conventional radio-frequency accelerators, spurring interest in laser accelerators4,5 as compact next-generation sources of energetic electrons and radiation To date, however, acceleration distances have been severely limited by the lack of a controllable method for extending the propagation distance of the focused laser pulse The ensuing short acceleration distance results in low-energy beams with 100 per cent electron energy spread1,2,3, which limits potential applications Here we demonstrate a laser accelerator that produces electron beams with an energy spread of a few per cent, low emittance and increased energy (more than 109 electrons above 80 MeV) Our technique involves the use of a preformed plasma density channel to guide a relativistically intense laser, resulting in a longer propagation distance The results open the way for compact and tunable high-brightness sources of electrons and radiationread more
Citations
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Proceedings Article
Attosecond Physics
TL;DR: In this paper, an attosecond "oscilloscope" was used to visualize the oscillating electric field of visible light with an oscillator and probe multi-electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and solids.
Journal ArticleDOI
GeV electron beams from a centimetre-scale accelerator
Wim Leemans,Bob Nagler,Anthony Gonsalves,Cs. Toth,Kei Nakamura,Kei Nakamura,C.G.R. Geddes,Eric Esarey,Carl Schroeder,Simon M. Hooker +9 more
TL;DR: In this article, a high-quality electron beam with 1 GeV energy was achieved by channelling a 40 TW peak-power laser pulse in a 3.3 cm-long gas-filled capillary discharge waveguide.
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Optics in the relativistic regime
TL;DR: In this paper, a number of consequences of relativistic-strength optical fields are surveyed, including wakefield generation, a relativistically version of optical rectification, in which longitudinal field effects could be as large as the transverse ones.
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Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems
TL;DR: In this article, a review of recent investigations on high-energy processes within the realm of relativistic quantum dynamics, quantum electrodynamics, and nuclear and particle physics, occurring in extremely intense laser fields is presented.
References
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Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses
Donna Strickland,Gerard Mourou +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the amplification and subsequent recompression of optical chirped pulses were demonstrated using a system which produces 1.06 μm laser pulses with pulse widths of 2 ps and energies at the millijoule level.
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Laser Electron Accelerator
Toshiki Tajima,John M. Dawson +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, an intense electromagnetic pulse can create a weak of plasma oscillations through the action of the nonlinear ponderomotive force, and electrons trapped in the wake can be accelerated to high energy.
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Overview of plasma-based accelerator concepts
TL;DR: An overview of the physics issues relevant to the plasma wakefield accelerator, the plasma beat-wave accelerator, including the self-modulated regime, and wakefield accelerators driven by multiple electron or laser pulses is given in this article.
Journal ArticleDOI
Laser wake field acceleration: the highly non-linear broken- wave regime
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to study laser wake field acceleration (LWFA) at highly relativistic laser intensities, and observed ultra-short electron bunches emerging from laser wake fields driven above the wave-breaking threshold by few-cycle laser pulses shorter than the plasma wavelength.
Journal ArticleDOI
Terawatt to Petawatt Subpicosecond Lasers
Michael D. Perry,Gerard Mourou +1 more
TL;DR: The application of the chirped-pulse amplification technique to solid-state lasers combined with the availability of broad-bandwidth materials has made possible the development of small-scale terawatt and now even petawatt laser systems.