Related papers: Teravolt-per-meter plasma wakefields from low-char…
An ultra-short (about 30 fs) petawatt laser pulse focused with a wide focal spot (about 100 microns) in a rarefied plasma (electron density of order 10^{17} per cm^3) excites a nonlinear plasma wakefield which can accelerate injected…
We propose to use tightly focused lasers to generate high quality electron beams in laser wakefield accelerators. In this scheme, the expansion of the laser beam after the focal position enlarges the size of wakefield bubble, which reduces…
Laser-driven plasma accelerators can generate accelerating gradients three orders of magnitude larger than radio-frequency accelerators and have achieved beam energies above 1 GeV in centimetre long stages. However, the pulse repetition…
We present a novel electron injection scheme for plasma wakefield acceleration. The method is based on recently proposed technique of fast electron generation via laser-solid interaction: a femtosecond laser pulse with the energy of tens of…
Electron beam quality is paramount for X-ray pulse production in free-electron-lasers (FELs). State-of-the-art linear accelerators (linacs) can deliver multi-GeV electron beams with sufficient quality for hard X-ray-FELs, albeit requiring…
We investigate the extension of self-injecting laser wakefield experiments to the regime that will be accessible with the next generation of petawatt class ultra-short pulse laser systems. Using linear scalings, current experimental trends…
We report on an experimental demonstration of laser wakefield electron acceleration using a sub-TW power laser by tightly focusing 30-fs laser pulses with only 8 mJ pulse energy on a 100 \mu m scale gas target. The experiments are carried…
Laser wakefield acceleration offers the promise of a compact electron accelerator for generating a multi-GeV electron beam using the huge field gradient induced by an intense laser pulse, compared to conventional rf accelerators. However,…
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) is a novel acceleration technique with promising prospects for both particle colliders and light sources. However, PWFA research has so far been limited to a few large-scale accelerator facilities…
We measure the emission of energetic electrons from the interaction between ultrashort laser pulses and a solid density plasma in the relativistic regime. We detect an electron beam that only appears with few-cycle pulses (< 10 fs) and…
Plasma accelerators can generate ultra high brightness electron beams which open the door to light sources with smaller physical footprint and properties un-achievable with conventional accelerator technology. In this paper we show that…
Plasma waves generated in the wake of intense, relativistic laser or particle beams can accelerate electron bunches to giga-electronvolt (GeV) energies in centimetre-scale distances. This allows the realization of compact accelerators…
Self-guided femtosecond laser pulses propagating in low-pressure gas can generate plasma filaments, establishing a new framework for plasma wakefield acceleration. Unlike conventional schemes relying on mechanically confined or preformed…
The extraordinary ability of space-charge waves in plasmas to accelerate charged particles at gradients that are orders of magnitude greater than in current accelerators has been well documented. We develop a phenomenological framework for…
It is found that nonlinear interaction of plasma wakefields driven by counterpropagating laser or particle beams can efficiently generate high-power electromagnetic radiation at the second harmonic of the plasma frequency. Using a simple…
Ionization injection triggered by short wavelength laser pulses inside a nonlinear wakefield driven by a longer wavelength laser is examined via multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We find that very bright electron beams can be…
Ultra-low emittance (tens of nm) beams can be generated in a plasma accelerator using ionization injection of electrons into a wakefield. An all-optical method of beam generation uses two laser pulses of different colors. A long-wavelength…
We report on the first results of laser plasma wakefield acceleration driven by ultrashort mid-infrared laser pulses (\lambda= 3.9 \mu m, 100 fs, 0.25 TW), which enable near- and above-critical density interactions with moderate-density gas…
We demonstrate through high-fidelity particle-in-cell simulations a simple approach for efficiently generating 20+ GeV electron beams with the necessary charge, energy spread, and emittance for use as the injector for an electron arm of a…
Utilizing laser plasma wakefield to accelerate ultra-high charge electron beam is critical for many pioneering applications, for example to efficiently produce nuclear isomers with short lifetimes which may be widely used. However, because…