Related papers: Laser reflection as a catalyst for direct laser ac…
Laser-plasma accelerators offer a compact means of producing high-energy electron beams, but their performance is fundamentally limited by dephasing between the accelerated electrons and the plasma wave. To overcome this limitation, we…
We show that under appropriate conditions the impact of a very short and intense laser pulse onto a plasma causes the expulsion of surface electrons with high energy in the direction opposite to the one of propagation of the pulse. This is…
A thin layer of overdense plasma is created when an electromagnetic pulse interacts with a rapidly ionizing thin foil. This layer will reflect the incoming pulse, forming a so-called plasma mirror. A simple realistic model based on paired…
We propose a simple laser-driven electron acceleration scheme based on tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses for the production of femtosecond electron bunches with energies in the few-hundreds-of-keV range. In this method, the…
The interaction of an ultraintense Nd:glass laser pulse with a near-critical plasma self-organizes into a highly efficient $\gamma$-ray source. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that relativistic self-focusing,…
An effective scheme of synchronized laser-triggered ion acceleration and the corresponding theoretical model are proposed for a slow light pulse of relativistic intensity, which penetrates into a near-critical-density plasma, strongly…
The direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electrons in underdense plasmas can provide 100s of nC of electrons accelerated to near-GeV energies using currently available lasers. Here we demonstrate the key role of electron transverse…
The dynamics of electric field generation and radial acceleration of ions by a laser pulse of relativistic intensity propagating in an underdense plasma has been investigated using an one-dimensional electrostatic, ponderomotive model…
Generation of collimated, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams (peak energy ~17-22MeV, divergence ~10mrad, energy spread ~20%) by interaction of Ti:sapphire laser pulse of 200fs duration, focussed to an intensity of ~ 2.1x10^18 W/cm^2,with an…
We demonstrate a scheme for enhanced proton acceleration from near-critical-density targets by splitting a laser pulse into a linearly and a circularly polarized laser pulse. The combination of two laser pulses generates a shock wave as…
A new parameter regime of laser wakefield acceleration driven by sub-petawatt femotsecond lasers is proposed, which enables the generation of relativistic electron mirrors further accelerated by the plasma wave. Integrated particle-in-cell…
A high-intensity laser beam propagating through a dense plasma drives a strong current that robustly sustains a strong quasi-static Mega Tesla-level azimuthal magnetic field. The transverse laser field efficiently accelerates electrons in…
Laser powered dielectric structures achieve high-gradient particle acceleration by taking advantage of modern laser technology capable of producing electric fields in excess of 10GV/m. These fields can drive the bulk dielectric beyond its…
A novel scheme is proposed to generate uniform relativistic electron layers for coherent Thomson backscattering. A few-cycle laser pulse is used to produce the electron layer from an ultra-thin solid foil. The key element of the new scheme…
Generation of ultrarelativistic polarized leptons during interaction of an ultrarelativistic electron beam with a counterpropagating ultraintense laser pulse is investigated in the quantum radiation-dominated domain. While the symmetry of…
While laser-plasma accelerators have demonstrated a strong potential in the acceleration of electrons up to giga-electronvolt energies, few experimental tools for studying the acceleration physics have been developed. In this paper, we…
A scenario for the enhanced laser-driven ion acceleration from a thin solid target at high laser intensity is considered, where the target is enclosed in a reflecting cavity. The laser pulse reflected from the target is redirected towards…
The processes of energy gain and redistribution in a dense gas subject to an intense ultrashort laser pulse are investigated theoretically for the case of high-pressure argon. The electrons released via strong-field ionization and driven by…
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…
The generation of energetic electron bunches by the interaction of a short, ultra-intense ($I>10^{19} \textrm{W/cm}^2$) laser pulse with "grating" targets has been investigated in a regime of ultra-high pulse-to-prepulse contrast…