Related papers: Optimizing direct laser-driven electron accelerati…
Relativistic electron beams produced by intense lasers over short distances have important applications in high energy density physics and medical technologies. Vacuum laser acceleration with plasma mirrors injectors has garnered…
In an electron wakefield accelerator, an intense laser pulse or charged particle beam excites plasma waves. Under proper conditions, electrons from the background plasma are trapped in the plasma wave and accelerated to ultra-relativistic…
The scaling laws for laser wakefield acceleration in the nonlinear, self-guided regime [Lu et al. Phys. Rev. Spec. Top. Accel. Beams 10, 061301 (2007)] are examined in detail using the quasi-3D version of the particle-in-cell code OSIRIS.…
Linear acceleration in free space is a topic that has been studied for over 20 years, and its ability to eventually produce high-quality, high energy multi-particle bunches has remained a subject of great interest. Arguments can certainly…
We report on new findings in a laser driven enhanced electron beam generation in the multi MeV energy range at moderate relativistic laser intensities and their applications. In our experiment, an intense sub-picosecond laser pulse…
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…
We present an experimental demonstration of high conversion efficiency Betatron x-ray radiation from petawatt laser irradiated near critical plasmas. Direct laser acceleration serves as the dominant regime when laser pulse of ~5e20 W/cm2…
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…
Intense lasers can accelerate electrons to very high energy over a short distance. Such compact accelerators have several potential applications including fast ignition, high energy physics, and radiography. Among the various schemes of…
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in a gas cell target separating injection and acceleration section has been investigated to produce high-quality electron beams. A detailed study has been performed on controlling the quality of…
The discovery of laser wakefield acceleration in gaseous plasma was a major milestone that could lead to a significant reduction of size and cost of large electron accelerators. For higher-energy laser-driven electron acceleration guiding…
Laser pulses of extreme intensities ($I>10^{22}~ \mathrm{W/cm^2}$) are about to become available in the laboratory. The prepulse of such a laser can induce a plasma expansion that generates a low-density channel in near-critical gas jets.…
An enhanced ionization injection scheme using a tightly focused laser pulse with intensity near the ionization potential to trigger the injection process in a mismatched pre-plasma channel has been proposed and examined via…
In the extreme high intensity regime of electromagnetic (EM) waves in plasma, the acceleration process is found to be dominated by the ponderomotive acceleration (PA). While the wakefields driven by the ponderomotive force of the…
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 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…
Laser wakefield acceleration offers the promise of a compact electron accelerator for generating a multi-GeV electron beam using the huge field gradient induced by an intense laser pulse, compared to conventional rf accelerators. However,…
We present a short review of recent progress in studying QED effects of interaction of ultra-relativistic laser pulses with vacuum and $e^-e^+$ plasma. The development of laser technologies promises very rapid growth of laser intensities in…
Today's high-intensity laser facilities produce short pulses can, in tight focus, reach peak intensities of $10^{22}\,\mathrm{Wcm}^{-2}$ and, in long focus, wakefield-accelerate electrons to GeV energies. The radiation-reaction--dominated…
Accelerating particles to high energies in plasma wakefields is considered to be a promising technique with good energy efficiency and high gradient. While important progress has been made in plasma-based electron acceleration, positron…