Related papers: Towards the Optimisation of Direct Laser Accelerat…
The excitation of surface plasmons with ultra-intense ($I\sim 5\times 10^{19}$ W/cm$^2$), high contrast ($\sim 10^{12}$) laser pulses on periodically-modulated solid targets has been recently demonstrated to produce collimated bunches of…
Radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) is a highly efficient mechanism of laser-driven ion acceleration, with with near complete transfer of the laser energy to the ions in the relativistic regime. However, there is a fundamental limit on…
We study and discuss electron acceleration in vacuum interacting with fundamental Gaussian pulses using specific parameters relevant for the multi-PW femtosecond lasers at ELI-NP. Taking into account the characteristic properties of both…
We present experimental studies on ion acceleration from ultra-thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) foils irradiated by ultra-high contrast laser pulses of energy 0.7 J focussed to peak intensities of 5*10^{19} W/cm^2. A reduction in electron…
Powerful laser-plasma processes are explored to generate discharge currents of a few $100\,$kA in coil targets, yielding magnetostatic fields (B-fields) in excess of $0.5\,$kT. The quasi-static currents are provided from hot electron…
Laser-based electron acceleration is attracting strong interest from the conventional accelerator community due to its outstanding characteristics in terms of high initial energy, low emittance and high beam current. Unfortunately, such…
Laser Wakefield Accelerator (LWFA) is considered as one of the most competitive candidates for the accelerators of the next generation. With the development of high power laser technologies, LWFA has shown its potential of replacing the…
Research activities on laser plasma accelerators are paved by many significant breakthroughs. This review article provides an opportunity to show the incredible evolution of this field of research which has, in record time, allowed…
Laser wakefield acceleration, characterized by the extremely high electric field gradient exceeding 100GV/m, is regarded as a compact and cost affordable technology for the next generation of particle colliders and light sources. However,…
We use Bayesian optimization in combination with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to determine the optimal laser and plasma parameters that, for a given laser pulse energy, maximize the cut-off energy of an electron beam…
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 propagation of ultra intense laser pulses through matter is connected with the generation of strong moving magnetic fields in the propagation channel as well as the formation of a thin ion filament along the axis of the channel. Upon…
Using plasma mirror injection we demonstrate, both analytically and numerically, that a circularly polarized helical laser pulse can accelerate highly collimated dense bunches of electrons to several hundred MeV using currently available…
We use the quasi-static particle-in-cell code QuickPIC to perform full-scale, one-to-one LWFA numerical experiments, with parameters that closely follow current experimental conditions. The propagation of state-of-the-art laser pulses in…
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…
Density dowmramp injection has been demonstrated to be an elegant and efficient approach for generating high quality electron beams in laser wakefield accelerators. Yet, the charge of the produced beam is tens of pC per Joule of laser…
We present the process of ion acceleration using ultra-thin foils irradiated by elliptically polarized, high-intensity laser pulses. Recently, efficient generation of monoenergetic ion beams was introduced using the concept of laser-ion…
Electric fields in a plasma that conducts a high-current pulse are measured as a function of time and space. The experiment is performed using a coaxial configuration, in which a current rising to 160 kA in 100 ns is conducted through a…
The interaction of high intensity laser radiation with mass-limited target exhibits significant enhancement of the ion acceleration when the target is surrounded by an underdense plasma corona, as seen in numerical simulations. The…
This research demonstrates high-repetition-rate laser-accelerated ion beams via dual, intersecting, counterpropagating laser-driven blast waves to precisely shape underdense gas into long-lived near-critical density targets. The collision…