Analysis of x-ray emission and electron dynamics in a capillary-guided laser wakefield accelerator

Ju, J.; Genoud, Guillaume; Ferrari, Hugo; Dadoun, O.; Paradkar, Bhooshan S.; Svensson, Kristoffer; Wojda, F.; Burza, Matthias; Persson, Anders; Lundh, Olle; Andreev, N. E.; Wahlström, Claes‐Göran; Cros, B.

doi:10.1103/physrevstab.17.051302

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Great results have been achieved in the generation of monoenergetic electron beams. For instance, in experiments on the interaction of relativistic laser pulses with low density gas jets and capillary plasmas, the obtained energies range from hundreds of MeV up to several GeV [17][18][19][20]. Nevertheless, the charge carried by these electron beams does not exceed tens of pC, which is not sufficient to radiograph HED-samples in experiments with a high level of background radiation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interaction of relativistically intense laser pulses with long-scale near critical plasmas for optimization of laser based sources of MeV electrons and gamma-rays

et al. 2019

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Experiments were performed to study electron acceleration by intense sub-picosecond laser pulses propagating in sub-mm long plasmas of near critical electron density (NCD). Low density foam layers of 300-500 μm thickness were used as targets. In foams, the NCD-plasma was produced by a mechanism of super-sonic ionization when a well-defined separate ns-pulse was sent onto the foamtarget forerunning the relativistic main pulse. The application of sub-mm thick low density foam layers provided a substantial increase of the electron acceleration path in a NCD-plasma compared to the case of freely expanding plasmas created in the interaction of the ns-laser pulse with solid foils. The performed experiments on the electron heating by a 100 J, 750 fs short laser pulse of 2-5×10 19 W cm −2 intensity demonstrated that the effective temperature of supra-thermal electrons increased from 1.5-2 MeV in the case of the relativistic laser interaction with a metallic foil at high laser contrast up to 13 MeV for the laser shots onto the pre-ionized foam. The observed tendency towards a strong increase of the mean electron energy and the number of ultra-relativistic laseraccelerated electrons is reinforced by the results of gamma-yield measurements that showed a 1000fold increase of the measured doses. The experiment was supported by 3D-PIC and FLUKA simulations, which considered the laser parameters and the geometry of the experimental set-up. Both, measurements and simulations showed a high directionality of the acceleration process, since the strongest increase in the electron energy, charge and corresponding gamma-yield was observed close to the direction of the laser pulse propagation. The charge of super-ponderomotive electrons with energy above 30 MeV reached a very high value of 78 nC.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interaction of relativistically intense laser pulses with long-scale near critical plasmas for optimization of laser based sources of MeV electrons and gamma-rays

et al. 2019

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“…Improvements in the laser technology helped extend the energy of photons from 10 to 100 keV range and improve their collimation [25][26][27]. Additionally, the use of a guiding capillary can enhance the fluence of x-rays by more than one order of magnitude [28][29][30]. With their fs-scale duration, high spatial coherence owing to the micron-scale source size, and a brilliance of order 10 22 photons=s=mm 2 =mrad 2 =0.1%BW [26], pulsed synchrotron x-rays from plasma wakes are a perfect fit for high-resolution phase contrast imaging [31][32][33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron acceleration and generation of high-brilliance x-ray radiation in kilojoule, subpicosecond laser-plasma interactions

Ferri

Davoine

Kalmykov

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams

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International audiencePetawatt, picosecond laser pulses offer rich opportunities in generating synchrotron x-rays. This paper concentrates on the regimes accessible with the PETAL laser, which is a part of the Laser Megajoule (LMJ) facility. We explore two physically distinct scenarios through Particle-in-Cell simulations. The first one realizes in a dense plasma, such that the period of electron Langmuir oscillations is much shorter than the pulse duration. Hallmarks of this regime are longitudinal breakup (“self-modulation”) of the picosecond-scale laser pulse and excitation of a rapidly evolving broken plasma wake. It is found that electron beams with a charge of several tens of nC can be obtained, with a quasi-Maxwellian energy distribution extending to a few-GeV level. In the second scenario, at lower plasma densities, the pulse is shorter than the electron plasma period. The pulse blows out plasma electrons, creating a single accelerating cavity, while injection on the density downramp creates a nC quasi-monoenergetic electron bunch within the cavity. This bunch accelerates without degradation beyond 1 GeV. The x-ray sources in the self-modulated regime offer a high number of photons (∼1012) with the slowly decaying energy spectra extending beyond 60 keV. In turn, quasimonoenergetic character of the electron beam in the blowout regime results in the synchrotron-like spectra with the critical energy around 10 MeV and a number of photons >109. Yet, much smaller source duration and transverse size increase the x-ray brilliance by more than an order of magnitude against the self-modulated case, also favoring high spatial and temporal resolution in x-ray imaging. In all explored cases, accelerated electrons emit synchrotron x-rays of high brilliance, B>1020 photons/s/mm2/mrad2/0.1%BW. Synchrotron sources driven by picosecond kilojoule lasers may thus find an application in x-ray diagnostics on such facilities such as the LMJ or National Ignition Facility (NIF)

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“…It is about 3 orders of magni-tude larger than the traditional radio frequency (RF) accelerator. Compared to the kilometer-scale traditional accelerators, a centimeter-scale LWFA is capable of providing the GeV-class electron bunches, which is significant for many applications such as FEL, [3][4][5][6] the Compton scattering, [7][8][9] bremsstrahlung radiation, [10][11][12] etc. [13,14] Great effort has been made in improving the beam quality and increasing the energy gain of the LWFA in the past decade, leading to the great progress in this field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developments in laser wakefield accelerators: From single-stage to two-stage

Li¹,

Wang²,

Liu³

et al. 2015

Chinese Phys. B

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Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) are compact accelerators which can produce femtosecond high-energy electron beams on a much smaller scale than the conventional radiofrequency accelerators. It is attributed to their high acceleration gradient which is about 3 orders of magnitude larger than the traditional ones. The past decade has witnessed the major breakthroughs and progress in developing the laser wakfield accelerators. To achieve the LWFAs suitable for applications, more and more attention has been paid to optimize the LWFAs for high-quality electron beams. A single-staged LWFA does not favor generating controllable electron beams beyond 1 GeV since electron injection and acceleration are coupled and cannot be independently controlled. Staged LWFAs provide a promising route to overcome this disadvantage by decoupling injection from acceleration and thus the electron-beam quality as well as the stability can be greatly improved. This paper provides an overview of the physical conceptions of the LWFA, as well as the major breakthroughs and progress in developing LWFAs from single-stage to two-stage LWFAs.

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Analysis of x-ray emission and electron dynamics in a capillary-guided laser wakefield accelerator

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Interaction of relativistically intense laser pulses with long-scale near critical plasmas for optimization of laser based sources of MeV electrons and gamma-rays

Interaction of relativistically intense laser pulses with long-scale near critical plasmas for optimization of laser based sources of MeV electrons and gamma-rays

Electron acceleration and generation of high-brilliance x-ray radiation in kilojoule, subpicosecond laser-plasma interactions

Developments in laser wakefield accelerators: From single-stage to two-stage

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