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We propose a new concept of an electron source for ultrafast electron diffraction with sub-10~fs temporal resolution. Electrons are generated in a laser-plasma accelerator, able to deliver femtosecond electron bunches at 5 MeV energy with…
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) has shown illustrious progress and resulted in an impressive demonstration of tens of GeV particle acceleration in meter-long single structures. To reach even higher energies in the 1 TeV to 10 TeV…
Relativistic wakes produced by intense laser or particle beams propagating through plasmas are being considered as accelerators for next generation of colliders and coherent light sources. Such wakes have been shown to accelerate electrons…
Laser wakefield acceleration, characterized by the extremely high electric field gradient exceeding 100GV/m, is regarded as a compact and cost affordable technology for the next generation of particle colliders and light sources. However,…
The interaction of ultra-intense laser pulses with an underdense plasma is used in laser-plasma acceleration to create compact sources of ultrashort pulses of relativistic electrons and X-rays. The accelerating structure is a plasma wave,…
Knowledge of molecular structure is paramount in understanding, and ultimately influencing, chemical reactivity. For nearly a century, diffractive imaging has been used to identify the structures of many biologically-relevant gas-phase…
A new scheme for injection and acceleration of electrons in wakefield accelerators is suggested based on the co-action of a laser pulse and an electron beam. This synergy leads to stronger wakefield generation and higher energy gain in the…
Ultrafast-optical-pump -- structural-probe measurements, including ultrafast electron and x-ray scattering, provide direct experimental access to the fundamental timescales of atomic motion, and are thus foundational techniques for studying…
In-situ white light Laue diffraction has been successfully used to interrogate the structure of single crystal materials undergoing rapid (nanosecond) dynamic compression up to megabar pressures. However, information on strain state…
Material processing with femtosecond lasers has attracted enormous attention because of its potential for technology and industrial applications. In parallel, time-resolved x-ray diffraction has been successfully used to study ultrafast…
The phase velocity of the wakefield of a laser wakefield accelerator can, theoretically, be manipulated by shaping the longitudinal plasma density profile, thus controlling the parameters of the generated electron beam. We present an…
Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFA) hold great potential to produce high-quality high-energy electron beams (e beams) and simultaneously bright x-ray sources via betatron radiation, which are very promising for pump-probe study in ultrafast…
Bright and ultrashort duration X-ray pulses can be produced by through betatron oscillations of electrons during Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA). Our experimental measurements using the \textsc{Hercules} laser system demonstrate a…
Ultra-intense lasers that ionize and accelerate electrons in solids to near the speed of light can lead to kinetic instabilities that alter the laser absorption and subsequent electron transport, isochoric heating, and ion acceleration.…
The one-dimensional wakefield generation equations are solved for increasing levels of non-linearity, to demonstrate how they contribute to the overall behaviour of a non-linear wakefield in a plasma. The effect of laser guiding is also…
We study the energetics of wake excitation during the laser-plasma interaction in application to laser wakefield accelerators. We find that both the wake amplitude and the accelerating efficiency (transformer ratio) can be maximized by…
Quantitative knowledge of electron-phonon coupling is important for many applications as well as for the fundamental understanding of nonequilibrium relaxation processes. Time-resolved diffraction provides direct access to this knowledge…
Sub-angstrom spatial resolution of electron density coupled with sub-femtosecond temporal resolution is required to directly observe the dynamics of the electronic structure of a molecule after photoinitiation or some other ultrafast…
Due to their ultra-short duration and peak currents in the kA range, laser-wakefield accelerated electron bunches are promising drivers for ultrafast X-ray generation in compact free-electron-lasers (FELs), Thomson-scattering or betatron…
Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons represents a basis for several types of novel X-ray sources based on Thomson scattering or betatron radiation. The latter provides a high photon flux and a small source size, both being…