Related papers: Relativistic electron acceleration by mJ-class kHz…
We demonstrate laser driven acceleration of electrons to MeV-scale energies at 1kHz repetition rate using <10mJ pulses focused on near-critical density He and H2 gas jets. Using the H2 gas jet, electron acceleration to ~0.5MeV in ~10fC…
Laser-accelerated electron beams have been created at a kHz repetition rate from the {\it reflection} of intense ($\sim10^{18}$ W/cm$^2$), $\sim$40 fs laser pulses focused on a continuous water-jet in an experiment at the Air Force Research…
Ultra-intense laser-matter interactions are often difficult to predict from first principles because of the complexity of plasma processes and the many degrees of freedom relating to the laser and target parameters. An important approach to…
We demonstrate laser-plasma acceleration of high charge electron beams to the ~10 MeV scale using ultrashort laser pulses with as little energy as 10 mJ. This result is made possible by an extremely dense and thin hydrogen gas jet. Total…
We present an experimental demonstration of the efficient acceleration of electrons beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets. We employed a high-contrast, 2.5 J, 32 fs short pulse laser interacting with a 5 \mu m inner diameter, 300…
Laser-plasma acceleration is an emerging technique for accelerating electrons to high energies over very short distances. The accelerated electron bunches have femtosecond duration, making them particularly relevant for applications such as…
We present an experimental study of the generation of $\sim$MeV electrons opposite to the direction of laser propagation following the relativistic interaction at normal incidence of a $\sim$3 mJ, $10^{18}$ W/cm$^2$ short pulse laser with a…
Ion acceleration from gaseous targets driven by relativistic-intensity lasers was demonstrated as early as the late 90s, yet most of the experiments conducted to date have involved picosecond-duration, Nd:glass lasers operating at low…
Recent experimental and theoretical results have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons in the MeV range by focusing tightly a few-cycle laser beam in ambient air. Using Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations, this configuration…
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…
The secular dynamics of a non-relativistic charged particle in an electromagnetic wave can be described by the ponderomotive potential. Although ponderomotive electron-laser interactions at relativistic velocities are important for emerging…
Advances in ultra-intense laser technology are enabling, for the first time, relativistic intensities at mid-infrared (mid-IR) wavelengths. Anticipating further experimental research in this domain, we present high-resolution two…
Experiments were performed to study electron acceleration by intense sub-picosecond laser pulses propagating in sub-mm long plasmas of near critical electron density (NCD). Low density foam layers of 300-500 um thickness were used as…
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 show the laser-driven acceleration of unprecedented, collimated ($ 2 \ \mathrm{mrad} $ divergence), and quasi-monoenergetic ($ 25 \ \% $ energy spread) electron beams with energy up to $ 50 \ \mathrm{MeV} $ at $ 1 \ \mathrm{kHz} $…
This dissertation explores the interaction between high-intensity lasers and plasmas to accelerate electrons and produce radiation via experimental and computational efforts. The laser pulses used in this dissertation have ultrashort…
Direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electrons in a plasma of near critical electron density (NCD) and associated synchrotron-like radiation are discussed for moderate relativistic laser intensity (the normalized laser amplitude $a_0$ $\leq$…
We study the laser-driven acceleration of electrons from overdense hydrogen clusters to energies of up to 13 MeV in laser forward direction and several hundreds of keV in an outer ring-like structure. The use of cryogenic hydrogen allows…
The extreme electric fields created in high-intensity laser-plasma interactions could generate energetic ions far more compactly than traditional accelerators. Despite this promise, laser-plasma accelerators have remained stagnant at…
We generate a tabletop pulsed relativistic electron beam at 100 Hz repetition rate from vacuum laser acceleration (VLA) by tightly focusing a radially polarized beam into a low-density gas. We demonstrate that strong longitudinal electric…