Laser wakefield acceleration: the injection issue. Overview and latest results

2006 ◽  
Vol 364 (1840) ◽  
pp. 679-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.J van der Wiel ◽  
O.J Luiten ◽  
G.J.H Brussaard ◽  
S.B van der Geer ◽  
W.H Urbanus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radio Frequency ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Plasma Waves ◽  
Energy Spread ◽  
Laser Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Electron Bunches ◽  
Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Laser Wakefield ◽  
External Injection ◽  
Wakefield Accelerator

External injection of electron bunches into laser-driven plasma waves so far has not resulted in ‘controlled’ acceleration, i.e. production of bunches with well-defined energy spread. Recent simulations, however, predict that narrow distributions can be achieved, provided the conditions for properly trapping the injected electrons are met. Under these conditions, injected bunch lengths of one to several plasma wavelengths are acceptable. This paper first describes current efforts to demonstrate this experimentally, using state-of-the-art radio frequency technology. The expected charge accelerated, however, is still low for most applications. In the second part, the paper addresses a number of novel concepts for significant enhancement of photo-injector brightness. Simulations predict that, once these concepts are realized, external injection into a wakefield accelerator will lead to accelerated bunch specs comparable to those of recent ‘laser-into-gasjet’ experiments, without the present irreproducibility of charge and final energy of the latter.

scholarly journals Coupling of longitudinal and transverse motion of accelerated electrons in laser wakefield acceleration

2004 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J.W. REITSMA ◽  
D.A. JAROSZYNSKI
Keyword(s):  
Laser Pulse ◽  
Group Velocity ◽  
Electron Bunch ◽  
Coupling Effect ◽  
Energy Spread ◽  
Transverse Motion ◽  
Laser Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Laser Wakefield ◽  
Wakefield Accelerator

The acceleration dynamics of electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator is discussed, in particular the coupling of longitudinal and transverse motion. This coupling effect is important for electrons injected with a velocity below the laser pulse group velocity. It is found that the electron bunch is adiabatically focused during the acceleration and that a finite bunch width contributes to bunch lengthening and growth of energy spread. These results indicate the importance of a small emittance for the injected electron bunch.

scholarly journals Electron bunch injection at an angle into a laser wakefield

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.J.H. Luttikhof ◽  
A.G. Khachatryan ◽  
F.A. van Goor ◽  
K.-J. Boller ◽  
P. Mora
Keyword(s):  
Laser Pulse ◽  
Electron Bunch ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Energy Spread ◽  
Pulse Dynamics ◽  
Electron Bunches ◽  
Vacuum Plasma ◽  
Laser Wakefield ◽  
External Injection ◽  
Wakefield Accelerator

AbstractExternal injection of electron bunches longer than the plasma wavelength in a laser wakefield accelerator can lead to the generation of femtosecond ultra relativistic bunches with a couple of percent energy spread. Extensive study has been done on external electron bunch (e.g., one generated by a photo-cathode RF linac) injection in a laser wakefield for different configurations.In this paper, we investigate a new way of external injection where the electron bunch is injected at a small angle into the wakefield. This way one can avoid the ponderomotive scattering as well as the vacuum-plasma transition region, which tend to destroy the injected bunch. In our simulations, the effect of the laser pulse dynamics is also taken into account. It is shown that injection at an angle can provide compressed and accelerated electron bunches with less than 2% energy spread. Another advantage of this scheme is that it has less stringent requirements in terms of the size of the injected bunch and there is the potential to trap more charge.

Effect of halo on the stability of electron bunches in laser wakefield acceleration

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 34002 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Nakanii ◽  
T. Hosokai ◽  
K. Iwasa ◽  
N. C. Pathak ◽  
S. Masuda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Laser Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Electron Bunches ◽  
Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Laser Wakefield ◽  
The Stability

GENERATION OF GOOD-QUALITY RELATIVISTIC ELECTRON BEAM FROM SELF-MODULATED LASER WAKEFIELD ACCELERATION

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 398-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. HAFZ ◽  
G. H. KIM ◽  
C. KIM ◽  
H. SUK
Keyword(s):  
Relativistic Electron ◽  
Energy Spread ◽  
Intense Laser ◽  
Laser Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Nitrogen Gas ◽  
Laser Plasma Interaction ◽  
Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Laser Wakefield ◽  
Central Energy ◽  
A Charge

A relativistic electron bunch with a large charge (~2 nC ) was produced from a self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration configuration. In this experiment, an intense laser pulse with a peak power of 2 TW and a duration of 700 fs was focused in a nitrogen gas jet, and multi-MeV electrons were observed from the strong laser-plasma interaction. By passing the electrons through a small pinhole-like collimator of cone f/70, we observed a narrowing in the electron beam's energy spread. The beam clearly showed a small energy-spread behavior with a central energy of 4.8 MeV and a charge of 115 pC. The acceleration gradient was estimated to be about 20 GeV/m.

Efficiency and Energy Spread in Laser-Wakefield Acceleration

2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. W. Reitsma ◽  
R. A. Cairns ◽  
R. Bingham ◽  
D. A. Jaroszynski
Keyword(s):  
Energy Spread ◽  
Laser Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Laser Wakefield

scholarly journals Improvement of Properties of Self-Injected and Accelerated Electron Bunch by Laser Pulse in Plasma, Using Pulse Precursor

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Laser Pulse ◽  
Laser Plasma ◽  
Electron Bunch ◽  
Energy Spread ◽  
Intense Laser ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Laser Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Small Energy ◽  
Wakefield Acceleration ◽  
Laser Wakefield

The accelerating gradients in conventional linear accelerators are currently limited to ~100 MV/m. Plasma-based accelerators have the ability to sustain accelerating gradients which are several orders of magnitude greater than that obtained in conventional accelerators. Due to the rapid development of laser technology the laser-plasma-based accelerators are of great interest now. Over the past decade, successful experiments on laser wakefield acceleration of electrons in the plasma have confirmed the relevance of this acceleration. Evidently, the large accelerating gradients in the laser plasma accelerators allow to reduce the size and to cut the cost of accelerators. Another important advantage of the laser-plasma accelerators is that they can produce short electron bunches with high energy. The formation of electron bunches with small energy spread was demonstrated at intense laser–plasma interactions. Electron self-injection in the wake-bubble, generated by an intense laser pulse in underdense plasma, has been studied. With newly available compact laser technology one can produce 100 PW-class laser pulses with a single-cycle duration on the femtosecond timescale. With a fs intense laser one can produce a coherent X-ray pulse. Prof. T. Tajima suggested utilizing these coherent X-rays to drive the acceleration of particles. When such X-rays are injected into a crystal they interact with a metallic-density electron plasma and ideally suit for laser wakefield acceleration. In numerical simulation of authors, performed according to idea of Prof. T.Tajima, on wakefield excitation by a X-ray laser pulse in a metallic-density electron plasma the accelerating gradient of several TV/m has been obtained. It is important to form bunch with small energy spread and small size. The purpose of this paper is to show by the numerical simulation that some precursor-laser-pulse, moved before the main laser pulse, controls properties of the self-injected electron bunch and provides at certain conditions small energy spread and small size of self-injected and accelerated electron bunch.

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