GeV-scale electron acceleration in a gas-filled capillary discharge waveguide
Open Access
- 1 November 2007
- journal article
- Published by IOP Publishing in New Journal of Physics
- Vol. 9 (11), 415
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/9/11/415
Abstract
We report experimental results on laser-driven electron acceleration with low divergence. The electron beam was generated by focussing 750 mJ, 42 fs laser pulses into a gas-filled capillary discharge waveguide at electron densities in the range between 1018 and 1019 cm−3. Quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches with energies as high as 500 MeV have been detected, with features reaching up to 1 GeV, albeit with large shot-to-shot fluctuations. A more stable regime with higher bunch charge (20–45 pC) and less energy (200–300 MeV) could also be observed. The beam divergence and the pointing stability are around or below 1 mrad and 8 mrad, respectively. These findings are consistent with self-injection of electrons into a breaking plasma wave.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Design considerations for table-top, laser-based VUV and X-ray free electron lasersApplied Physics B Laser and Optics, 2007
- Bubble acceleration of electrons with few-cycle laser pulsesNew Journal of Physics, 2006
- Generation of Quasimonoenergetic Electron Bunches with 80-fs Laser PulsesPhysical Review Letters, 2006
- Spectral and dynamical features of the electron bunch accelerated by a short-pulse high intensity laser in an underdense plasmaPhysics of Plasmas, 2005
- Scalings for ultrarelativistic laser plasmas and quasimonoenergetic electronsPhysics of Plasmas, 2005
- Monoenergetic beams of relativistic electrons from intense laser–plasma interactionsNature, 2004
- A laser–plasma accelerator producing monoenergetic electron beamsNature, 2004
- High-quality electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator using plasma-channel guidingNature, 2004
- Laser wake field acceleration: the highly non-linear broken-wave regimeApplied Physics B Laser and Optics, 2002
- Laser Electron AcceleratorPhysical Review Letters, 1979