Laser driven electron acceleration in vacuum, gases, and plasmas

Sprangle, P.; Esarey, E.; Krall, J.

doi:10.1063/1.871673

Cited by 183 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…This is due to the ponderomotive force associated with the pulse envelope and it is optimally driven when the pulse length Lϭc L matches half the plasma wavelength p /2ϭc/ p . 11,23 This process combined with the restoring force due to ion inertia leads to the creation of a longitudinal electrostatic wake field propagating with a phase velocity equal to the group velocity of the laser pulse in the plasma. Background electrons are trapped in the potential well of such a wave and they are accelerated in the direction of propagation.…”

Section: B Electron Accelerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of MeV electrons and positrons with femtosecond pulses from a table-top laser system

Gahn¹,

Tsakiris²,

Pretzler³

et al. 2002

Physics of Plasmas

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In experiments, the feasibility was demonstrated of generating multi-MeV electrons in a form of a collimated beam utilizing a table-top laser system delivering 200 fs pulses with P L ϭ1.2 TW and 10 Hz capability. The method uses the process of relativistic self-channeling in a high-density gas jet producing electron densities in the range of 3ϫ1019 -6ϫ10 20 cm Ϫ3 . In a thorough investigation, angularly resolved and absolutely calibrated electron spectra were measured and their dependence on the plasma density, laser intensity, and gas medium was studied. For the optimum electron density of n e ϭ2ϫ10 20 cm Ϫ3 the effective temperature of the electron energy distribution and the channel length exhibit a maximum of 5 MeV and 400 m respectively. The laser-energyto-MeV-electron efficiency is estimated to be 5%. In a second step, utilizing the multi-MeV electron beam anti-particles, namely positrons, were successfully generated in a 2 mm Pb converter. The average intensity of this new source of positrons is estimated to be equivalent to a radioactivity of 2ϫ10 8 Bq and it exhibits a very favorable scaling for higher laser intensities.

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Section: B Electron Accelerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of MeV electrons and positrons with femtosecond pulses from a table-top laser system

Gahn¹,

Tsakiris²,

Pretzler³

et al. 2002

Physics of Plasmas

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“…Despite a number of advantages with LWFA, it depends on a nonlinear laser plasma interaction, necessitating multi-TW laser systems. Several direct laser acceleration schemes, such as the inverse Cherenkov accelerator [20], the semi-infinite vacuum accelerator [21], and vacuum beat wave accelerator [22][23][24], are proposed as alternatives for small-scale laser systems. However, these schemes suffer a low acceleration gradient (< 40 MV=m) and short interaction distance (vacuum diffraction length).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quasi-phase-matched acceleration of electrons in a corrugated plasma channel

Yoon

Palastro

Gordon

et al. 2012

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

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A laser pulse propagating in a corrugated plasma channel is composed of spatial harmonics whose phase velocities can be subluminal. The phase velocity of a spatial harmonic can be matched to the speed of a relativistic electron resulting in direct acceleration by the guided laser field in a plasma waveguide and linear energy gain over the interaction length. Here we examine the fully self-consistent interaction of the laser pulse and electron beam using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. For low electron beam densities, we find that the ponderomotive force of the laser pulse pushes plasma channel electrons towards the propagation axis, which deflects the beam electrons. When the beam density is high, the space charge force of the beam drives the channel electrons off axis, providing collimation of the beam. In addition, we consider a ramped density profile for lowering the threshold energy for trapping in a subluminal spatial harmonic. By using a density ramp, the trapping energy for a normalized vector potential of a 0 ¼ 0:1 is reduced from a relativistic factor 0 ¼ 170 to 0 ¼ 20.

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“…The possibility of utilising the fields of an intense laser beam to accelerate particles to high energies has attracted a great deal of interest Sprangle et al 1996). There is a basic difference between acceleration in a laser field which includes plasma effects and acceleration without a plasma.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although this direct acceleration scheme is less than ideal, because the pulse can generate a parasitic wake (Marqes et al 1996;Siders et al 1996), its simplicity is noteworthy. However, like many other laser-driven acceleration schemes Sprangle et al 1996), dephasing between the particle and the pulse (Mckinstrie and Startsev 1997) always exists because the propagation speed of the pulse is assumed to be constant. Although the dephasing is essential to particle extraction, it causes two limitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%