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Recent progress in laser-driven plasma acceleration now enables the acceleration of electrons to several gigaelectronvolts. Taking advantage of these novel accelerators, ultra-short, compact and spatially coherent X-ray sources called…
In a laser plasma accelerator (LPA), a short and intense laser pulse propagating in a plasma drives a wakefield (a plasma wave with a relativistic phase velocity) that can sustain extremely large electric fields, enabling compact…
One of the major goals of research for laser-plasma accelerators is the realization of compact sources of femtosecond X-rays. In particular, using the modest electron energies obtained with existing laser systems, Compton scattering a…
In this article, we concentrate on the basic physics of relativistic plasma wave accelerators. The generation of relativistic plasma waves by intense lasers or electron beams in low-density plasmas is important in the quest for producing…
Active energy compression scheme is presently being investigated for future laser-plasma accelerators. This method enables generating laser-plasma accelerator electron beams with a small, $\sim 10^{-5}$, relative slice energy spread. When…
The spatial coherence of laser sources has limited their application to parallel imaging and projection due to coherent artifacts, such as speckle. In contrast, traditional incoherent light sources, such as thermal sources or light emitting…
The injection of electrons into a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) is observed to generate an intense coherent ultra-broadband and ultrashort pulse radiation flash, consistent with the acceleration of electrons from rest to nearly the…
The recent progress in the quantum optical formulation of the process of high harmonic generation has reached a point where the successful semi-classical model shows its limitations. So far the light source which drives the process was…
We study the conditions for coherent radiation of an electron bunch driven by a counterpropagating strong pulsed electromagnetic plane wave. We derive the spectrum of the coherent radiation and show that it is emitted backwards with respect…
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…
Large scale laser facilities are needed to advance the energy frontier in high energy physics and accelerator physics. Laser plasma accelerators are core to advanced accelerator concepts aimed at reaching TeV electron electron colliders. In…
X-ray devices are far superior to optical ones for providing nanometre spatial and attosecond temporal resolutions. Such resolution is indispensable in biology, medicine, physics, material sciences, and their applications. A bright…
Most present and future electron accelerators require bright sources. Invented less than ten years ago, the photo-injector the principle of which is briefly recalled, has already demonstrated that it can provide very bright beams. In this…
Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) are high-power coherent light sources in the midinfrared and terahertz parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. They are devices in which the electronic and lattice systems are far from equilibrium, strongly…
The widespread use of high energy particle beams in basic research, medicine and coherent X-ray generation coupled with the large size of modern radio frequency (RF) accelerator devices and facilities has motivated a strong need for…
The laser invention more than fifty years ago was a major scientific revolution. Among the different possible gain media, the Free Electron Lasers (FEL) uses free electrons in the periodic permanent magnetic field of an undulator, covering…
We propose a new concept of an electron source for ultrafast electron diffraction with sub-10~fs temporal resolution. Electrons are generated in a laser-plasma accelerator, able to deliver femtosecond electron bunches at 5 MeV energy with…
Plasma wakefield accelerators are capable of sustaining gigavolt-per-centimeter accelerating fields, surpassing the electric breakdown threshold in state-of-the-art accelerator modules by 3-4 orders of magnitude. Beam-driven wakefields…
Beam injection and extraction from a plasma module is still one of the crucial aspects to solve in order to produce high quality electron beams with a plasma accelerator. Proper matching conditions require to focus the incoming high…
Scattering relativistic electrons with optical lasers can result in a significant frequency upshift for the photons, potentially producing $\gamma$-rays. This is what linear Compton scattering taught us. Ultra-intense lasers offer nowadays…