Related papers: Overcoming the dephasing limit in multiple-pulse l…
The energy gain in laser wakefield accelerators is limited by dephasing between the driving laser pulse and the highly relativistic electrons in its wake. Since this phase depends on both the driver and the cavity length, the effects of…
We show that both the maximum energy gain and the accelerated beam quality can be efficiently controlled by the plasma density profile. Choosing a proper density gradient one can uplift the dephasing limitation. When a periodic wake field…
The energy gain in laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is ultimately limited by dephasing, occurring when accelerated electrons outrun the accelerating phase of the wakefield. We apply quasi-phasematching, enabled by axially modulated…
Laser wakefield accelerators rely on the extremely high electric fields of nonlinear plasma waves to trap and accelerate electrons to relativistic energies over short distances. When driven strongly enough, plasma waves break, trapping a…
Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) have electric fields that are orders of magnitude larger than those of conventional accelerators, promising an attractive, small-scale alternative for next-generation light sources and lepton colliders.…
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) may enable the next generation of TeV-scale lepton colliders. Reaching such energies will likely require multiple LWFA stages to overcome limitations on the energy gain achievable in a single stage. The…
Self-guided femtosecond laser pulses propagating in low-pressure gas can generate plasma filaments, establishing a new framework for plasma wakefield acceleration. Unlike conventional schemes relying on mechanically confined or preformed…
We report on the depletion and power amplification of the driving laser pulse in a strongly-driven laser wakefield accelerator. Simultaneous measurement of the transmitted pulse energy and temporal shape indicate an increase in peak power…
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…
Structured light pulses hold significant promise for their ability to overcome dephasing in laser-wakefield accelerators, that should facilitate applications in high-energy physics and XFEL. Numerical studies have shown that sculpting a…
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…
Experimental results, supported by precise modelling, demonstrate optimisation of a plasma-based injector with intermediate laser pulse energy ($<1$ J), corresponding to a normalised vector potential $a_0 = 2.15$, using ionisation injection…
We report on systematic and high-precision measurements of dephasing, an effect that fundamentally limits the performance of laser wakefield accelerators. Utilizing shock-front injection, a technique providing stable, tunable and…
We present the first experimental confirmation that a laser-wakefield accelerator produced by a flying focus pulse is able to maintain the coherent structures necessary to accelerate electrons to relativistic energies. Through a combination…
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…
Laser-driven plasma accelerators can generate accelerating gradients three orders of magnitude larger than radio-frequency accelerators and have achieved beam energies above 1 GeV in centimetre long stages. However, the pulse repetition…
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…
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…
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…
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…