Related papers: Electron Acceleration in a Flying-Focus Laser Wake…
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…
Flying-focus wakefields, which can propagate with a tunable velocity along the optical axis, are promising solutions to electron dephasing in laser-wakefield accelerators. This is accomplished by a combination of spatio-temporal couplings…
The use of structured light to control the phase velocity of the wake in laser-wakefield accelerators has generated significant interest for its ability to mitigate electron dephasing. Combining the diffraction-free properties of Bessel…
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…
The electric field in laser-driven plasma wakefield acceleration is orders of magnitude higher than conventional radio-frequency cavities, but the energy gain is limited by dephasing between the ultra-relativistic electron bunch and the…
A new scheme for injection and acceleration of electrons in wakefield accelerators is suggested based on the co-action of a laser pulse and an electron beam. This synergy leads to stronger wakefield generation and higher energy gain in the…
The extreme electric fields created in high-intensity laser-plasma interactions could generate energetic ions far more compactly than traditional accelerators. Despite this promise, laser-plasma accelerators have remained stagnant at…
An ultra-short (about 30 fs) petawatt laser pulse focused with a wide focal spot (about 100 microns) in a rarefied plasma (electron density of order 10^{17} per cm^3) excites a nonlinear plasma wakefield which can accelerate injected…
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 propose to use tightly focused lasers to generate high quality electron beams in laser wakefield accelerators. In this scheme, the expansion of the laser beam after the focal position enlarges the size of wakefield bubble, which reduces…
We report on an experimental demonstration of laser wakefield electron acceleration using a sub-TW power laser by tightly focusing 30-fs laser pulses with only 8 mJ pulse energy on a 100 \mu m scale gas target. The experiments are carried…
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…
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…
All-optical controlled injection and acceleration of electrons in a laser wakefield has recently been achieved (Faure et al, Nature v. 444 p. 737, 2006). Injection was made using a second counterpropagating laser pulse with the same…
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…
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,…
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…
We present a novel electron injection scheme for plasma wakefield acceleration. The method is based on recently proposed technique of fast electron generation via laser-solid interaction: a femtosecond laser pulse with the energy of tens of…
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…