Related papers: Extensive study of electron acceleration by relati…
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…
In laser-solid interactions, electrons may be generated and subsequently accelerated to energies of the order-of-magnitude of the ponderomotive limit, with the underlying process dominated by direct laser acceleration. Breaking this limit,…
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…
Proton acceleration by ultra-intense laser pulse irradiating a target with cross-section smaller than the laser spot size and connected to a parabolic density channel is investigated. The target splits the laser into two parallel…
Laser plasma interaction with micro-engineered targets at relativistic intensities has been greatly promoted by recent progress in the high contrast lasers and the manufacture of advanced micro- and nano-structures. This opens new…
We demonstrate that electrons can be efficiently accelerated to high energy in spatially non-uniform, intense laser fields. Laser non-uniformities occur when a perfect plane wave reflects off a randomly perturbed surface. By solving for…
The role of relativistic surface plasmons (SPs) in high order harmonic emission from laser-irradiated grating targets has been investigated by means of particle-in-cell simulations. SP excitation drives a strong enhancement of the intensity…
The accelerating gradients in conventional linear accelerators are currently limited to 100 MV per meter. Plasma-based accelerators have the ability to sustain accelerating gradients which are several orders of magnitude greater than that…
We briefly report on the recently proposed [G. Fiore, R. Fedele, U. de Angelis, Phys. Plasmas 21 (2014), 113105], [G. Fiore, S. De Nicola, arXiv:1509.04656] electron acceleration mechanism named "slingshot effect": under suitable conditions…
We examine the impact of several factors on electron acceleration by a laser pulse and the resulting electron energy gain. Specifically, we consider the role played by: 1) static longitudinal electric field; 2) static transverse electric…
An efficient approach that considers a high-intensity twisted laser of moderate energy (few J) is proposed to generate collimated proton bunches with multi-10-MeV energies from a double-layer hydrogen target. Three-dimensional…
Laser-solid interaction can lead to the acceleration of protons to tens of MeV. Here, we show that a strong enhancement of this acceleration can be achieved by splitting the laser pulse to two parts of equal energy and opposite incidence…
We explore the physics of electron acceleration in a plasma medium in an effective field theory framework. Employing a multiple Compton scattering mechanism, it is found that the acceleration can be sustained in such a medium so as to…
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…
Recent experiments (R. A. Baragiola and C. A. Dukes, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 2547 (1996)) with slow ions incident at grazing angle on metal surfaces have shown that bulk plasmons are excited under conditions where the ions do not…
Particle acceleration using ultraintense, ultrashort laser pulses is one of the most attractive topics in relativistic laser-plasma research. We report proton/ion acceleration in the intensity range of 5x1019 W/cm2 to 3.3x1020 W/cm2 by…
Direct laser acceleration of electrons is considered in a strongly magnetized plasmoid with the magnetic field strength allowing for reaching the auto-resonance. The plasmoid may be optically created by irradiation of specially designed…
We demonstrate a high-energy, high-charge, electron source produced by the irradiation of a novel gaseous target by an ultra-intense femtosecond laser pulse. By exploiting a nonsymmetrical nozzle, we increased the total charge of the…
Proton acceleration by using a 620-TW, 18-J laser pulse of peak intensity of $5\times 10^{21}$ W/cm$^{2}$ irradiating a disk target is examined using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is shown that protons are accelerated…
Different electron acceleration regimes in the evanescent field of a surface plasma wave are studied by considering the interaction of a test electron with the high-frequency electromagnetic field of a surface wave. The non-relativistic and…