Related papers: Recent results at SPARC_LAB
High-brightness beams generated by particle sources based on advanced accelerator concepts have the potential to become an essential part of future accelerator technology. High-gradient accelerators can generate and rapidly accelerate…
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…
Acceleration of electrons in vacuum directly by intense laser fields, often termed vacuum laser acceleration (VLA), holds great promise for the creation of compact sources of high-charge, ultrashort, relativistic electron bunches. However,…
A new electron acceleration mechanism is identified that develops when a relativistically intense laser irradiates the wedge of an over-dense plasma. This induces a diffracted electromagnetic wave with a significant longitudinal electric…
Surface acceleration of fast electrons in intense laser-plasma interaction is improved by using sub-wavelength grating targets. The fast electron beam emitted along the target surface was enhanced by more than three times relative to that…
A proof-of-principle experiment demonstrating dielectric laser acceleration of non-relativistic electrons in the vicinity of a fused-silica grating is reported. The grating structure is utilized to generate an electromagnetic surface wave…
Autoresonant phase-locking of the plasma wakefield to the beat frequency of two driving lasers offers advantages over conventional wakefield acceleration methods, since it requires less demanding laser parameters and is robust to variations…
In the effort of achieving high-energetic ion beams from the interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with a plasma, volumetric acceleration mechanisms beyond Target Normal Sheath Acceleration have gained attention. A relativisticly intense…
Active energy compression scheme is presently being investigated for future laser-plasma accelerators. This method enables generating laser-plasma accelerator electron beams with a small, $\sim 10^{-5}$, relative slice energy spread. When…
Compact laser-driven accelerators are versatile and powerful tools of unarguable relevance on societal grounds for the diverse purposes of science, health, security, and technology because they bring enormous practicality to…
We demonstrate experimentally the resonant excitation of plasma waves by trains of laser pulses. We also take an important first step to achieving an energy recovery plasma accelerator by showing that unused wakefield energy can be removed…
The concept of a hybrid laser wakefield/direct laser plasma accelerator is proposed. Relativistic electrons undergoing resonant betatron oscillations inside the plasma bubble created by a laser pulse are accelerated by gaining energy…
Plasma-based accelerators have achieved tremendous progress in the past few decades, thanks to the advances of high power lasers and the availability of high-energy and relativistic particle beams. However, the electrons (or positrons)…
The availability of ever stronger, laser-generated electromagnetic fields underpins continuing progress in the study and application of nonlinear phenomena in basic physical systems, ranging from molecules and atoms to relativistic plasmas…
We review recent PIC simulation results which show that double-sided irradiation of a thin over- dense plasma slab by ultra-intense laser pulses from both sides can lead to sustained comoving acceleration of surface electrons to energies…
A near-hollow plasma channel, where the plasma density in the channel is much less than the plasma density in the walls, is proposed to provide independent control over the focusing and accelerating forces in a plasma accelerator. In this…
Laser plasma acceleration at kilohertz repetition rate has recently been shown to work in two different regimes, with pulse lengths of either 30 fs or 3.5 fs. We now report on a systematic study in which a large range of pulse durations and…
We present a conceptual design for a hybrid laser-to-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. In this setup, the output beams from a laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerator (LWFA) stage are used as input beams of a new beam-driven plasma…
This perspective paper deals with an overview of particle-in-cell / Monte Carlo collision models applied to different plasma-propulsion configurations and scenarios, from electrostatic (E x B and pulsed arc) devices to electromagnetic (RF…
Accelerator-based light sources such as storage rings and free-electron lasers use relativistic electron beams to produce intense radiation over a wide spectral range for fundamental research in physics, chemistry, materials science,…