Relativistic laser driven electron accelerator using micro-channel plasma targets
Abstract
We present an experimental demonstration of the efficient acceleration of electrons beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets. We employed a high-contrast, 2.5 J, 32 fs short pulse laser interacting with a 5 μm inner diameter, 300 μm long micro-channel plasma target. The micro-channel was aligned to be collinear with the incident laser pulse, confining the majority of the laser energy within the channel. The measured electron spectrum showed a large increase in the cut-off energy and slope temperature when compared to that from a 2 μm flat Copper target, with the cutoff energy more than doubled and the total energy in electrons >5 MeV enhanced by over 10 times. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations confirm efficient direct laser acceleration enabled by the novel structure as the dominant acceleration mechanism for the high energy electrons. The simulations further reveal the guiding effect of the channel that successfully explains preferential acceleration on the laser/channel axis observed in experiments. Finally, systematic simulations provide scalings for the energy and charge of the electron pulses. Our results show that the micro-channel plasma target is a promising electron source for applications such as ion acceleration, Bremsstrahlung X-ray radiation, and THZ generation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.5087409
Entities
People
- A. Handler
- A. Zingale
- B. F. Shen
- C. Willis
- D. Nasir
- D. W. Schumacher
- Enam Chowdhury
- Ginevra Cochran
- Joseph Snyder
- Kevin George
- Liangliang Ji
- P. L. Poole
- R. L. Daskalova
- T. Rubin
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- Miami University
- Ohio State University
- Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics
- Shanghai Normal University
- United States Department of Energy