Relativistic laser plasmas for electron acceleration and short wavelength radiation generation

Pukhov, A.; Brügge, D. an der; Kostyukov, I. Yu.

doi:10.1088/0741-3335/52/12/124039

Cited by 34 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In spite of consistently larger bubble expansion, beam loading leaves the collection volume unaltered. Figure 1(c) shows that electrons are collected from the cylindrical shell with the radius somewhat smaller than the local bubble size [23,63,81,91]; the radius of the shell is prescribed by the local spot size of the laser pulse head [23,63,92]. Just a few particles are injected from the near-axis region.…”

Section: Stage Ii: Continuous Injection Into the Growing Bubblementioning

confidence: 99%

Laser plasma acceleration with a negatively chirped pulse: all-optical control over dark current in the blowout regime

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent experiments with 100 terawatt-class, sub-50 femtosecond laser pulses show that electrons self-injected into a laser-driven electron density bubble can be accelerated above 0.5 gigaelectronvolt energy in a sub-centimetrelength rarefied plasma. To reach this energy range, electrons must ultimately outrun the bubble and exit the accelerating phase; this, however, does not ensure high beam quality. Wake excitation increases the laser pulse bandwidth by red-shifting its head, keeping the tail unshifted. Anomalous group velocity dispersion of radiation in plasma slows down the red-shifted head, compressing the pulse into a few-cycle-long piston of relativistic intensity. Pulse transformation into a piston causes continuous expansion of the bubble, trapping copious numbers of unwanted electrons (dark current) and producing a poorly collimated, polychromatic energy tail, completely dominating the electron spectrum at the dephasing limit. The process of piston formation can be mitigated by using a broad-bandwidth (corresponding to a few-cycle transform-limited duration), negatively chirped pulse. Initial blue-shift of the pulse leading edge compensates for the nonlinear frequency red-shift and delays the piston formation, thus significantly suppressing the dark current, making 3 the electron rest mass, n 0 is the background electron density and e is the electron charge. Even with the Lorentz factor γ g approaching 100, the bubble is a 'slow' structure capable of capturing and accelerating initially quiescent electrons of the ambient plasma [22,23,[45][46][47]. Optical diagnostics directly correlate the generation of a collimated electron beam with bubble formation [48][49][50][51][52]. While other (e.g. all-optical) injection schemes are currently being explored [53][54][55][56][57], electron self-injection has its own advantages: it greatly reduces the technical complexity of the experiment, preserving flexibility in parameters and enabling a single-stage acceleration of nano-Coulomb (nC) charge [23,47].Accelerated electrons eventually outrun the slow bubble. They exit the accelerating phase within a time intervalis the bubble radius and k p = ω pe /c. In strongly rarefied plasmas, where γ g k p R b , dephasing takes many Rayleigh lengths 5 . Propagation of the pulse over this distance relies on a combination of relativistic and ponderomotive self-guiding [58][59][60]. Upon entering the plasma, the pulse, with P P cr and duration τ L < 2π/ω pe , self-focuses until full electron cavitation is achieved, and the charge-separation force balances the radial ponderomotive force; the pulse is then guided until depletion (here, P cr = 16.2γ 2 g GW is the critical power for relativistic self-focusing [61]). As this force balance is approached, the bubble size oscillates, causing electron injection during a brief time interval. A QME electron bunch thus forms early [45,62,63]. However, transient dynamics before the onset of self-guiding [23], as well as laser evolution during self-guiding [5,7,22,23,[63][64][65], may cause ...

show abstract

Section: Stage Ii: Continuous Injection Into the Growing Bubblementioning

confidence: 99%

Laser plasma acceleration with a negatively chirped pulse: all-optical control over dark current in the blowout regime

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Here we discuss harmonic generation in the spectral region n > n CWE to avoid any possible ambiguity with this mechanism. As mentioned above, recent theoretical work has shown how CSE can be generated into the specularly reflected direction during p-polarized, oblique incidence interactions [7,12]. This process relies on the formation of dense nanobunches of electrons at the vacuum-solid interface during oblique incidence relativistically intense interactions.…”

Section: Isolation and Generation Of Coherent Synchrotron Emission (Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This process relies on the formation of dense nanobunches of electrons at the vacuum-solid interface during oblique incidence relativistically intense interactions. An der Brugge and Pukhov [7,12] identify conditions under which such bunches can emit CSE for few (<5) cycle interactions. CSE is characterized by a nearly flat, synchrotron-like spectrum (I (n) ∼ n −4/3 to n −6/5 ) up to a rollover frequency ω rs that is intrinsically linked to δ and the maximum Lorentz factor…”

Section: Isolation and Generation Of Coherent Synchrotron Emission (Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The observation of bright, beamed extreme ultraviolet (XUV) harmonic radiation via the relativistically oscillating mirror (ROM) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and the coherent wake emission (CWE) [8][9][10][11] mechanisms have show that relativistic laser-plasma interactions can be tailored experimentally to support coherent XUV pulse generation. Recent theoretical work, however, has revealed that under certain conditions the potential also exists for generating harmonic radiation via coherent synchrotron emission (CSE) during the interaction of intense lasers with steep density gradient plasma-vacuum boundaries, dramatically boosting the generated harmonic efficiency [7,12]. Experimentally it has been shown that characteristic CSE spectra can be generated during normal incidence interactions in the transmitted direction [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…10 −9 m scale) to be formed on ultrafast timescales (< 10 −15 s) both in the reflected [15] and transmitted [16] directions. Going one step further, recent work has shown that under certain conditions bunches formed and accelerated by the strong fields of a relativistically intense laser pulse can permit the generation of CSE extending to the x-ray regime in specular reflection during p-polarized, oblique incidence laser-solid target interactions [7,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Coherent synchrotron emission in transmission from ultrathin relativistic laser plasmas

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Isolation of Coherent Synchrotron Emission During Relativistic Laser Plasma Interactions

Dromey

Rykovanov

Lewis

et al. 2015

Springer Proceedings in Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Relativistic laser plasmas for electron acceleration and short wavelength radiation generation

Cited by 34 publications

References 48 publications

Laser plasma acceleration with a negatively chirped pulse: all-optical control over dark current in the blowout regime

Laser plasma acceleration with a negatively chirped pulse: all-optical control over dark current in the blowout regime

Coherent synchrotron emission in transmission from ultrathin relativistic laser plasmas

Isolation of Coherent Synchrotron Emission During Relativistic Laser Plasma Interactions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About