Tapered plasma channels to phase-lock accelerating and focusing forces in laser-plasma accelerators

Tapered plasma channels are considered for controlling dephasing of a beam with respect to a plasma wave driven by a weakly-relativistic, short-pulse laser. Tapering allows for enhanced energy gain in a single laser plasma accelerator stage. Expressions are derived for the taper, or longitudinal plasma density variation, required to maintain a beam at a constant phase in the longitudinal and/or transverse fields of the plasma wave. In a plasma channel, the phase velocities of the longitudinal and transverse fields differ, and, hence, the required tapering differs. The length over which the tapered plasma density becomes singular is calculated. Linear plasma tapering as well as discontinuous plasma tapering, which moves beams to adjacent plasma wave buckets, are also considered. The energy gain of an accelerated electron in a tapered laser-plasma accelerator is calculated and the laser pulse length to optimize the energy gain is determined

Transverse Beam Profile Measurements of Laser Accelerated Electrons using Coherent Optical Radiation

We use coherent optical transition radiation (COTR) to measure the transverse profile of laser-accelerated electron bunches. The retrieved electron beam profiles are compared to scintillator-based beam profile measurements. © 2012 American Institute of Physics

Tapered plasma channels to phase-lock accelerating and focusing forces in laser-plasma accelerators

Tapered plasma channels are considered for controlling dephasing of a beam with respect to a plasma wave driven by a weakly-relativistic, short-pulse laser. Tapering allows for enhanced energy gain in a single laser plasma accelerator stage. Expressions are derived for the taper, or longitudinal plasma density variation, required to maintain a beam at a constant phase in the longitudinal and/or transverse fields of the plasma wave. In a plasma channel, the phase velocities of the longitudinal and transverse fields differ, and, hence, the required tapering differs. The length over which the tapered plasma density becomes singular is calculated. Linear plasma tapering as well as discontinuous plasma tapering, which moves beams to adjacent plasma wave buckets, are also considered. The energy gain of an accelerated electron in a tapered laser-plasma accelerator is calculated and the laser pulse length to optimize the energy gain is determined

Electron trapping and reinjection in prepulse-shaped gas targets for laser-plasma accelerators

A novel mechanism for injection, emittance selection, and postacceleration for laser wakefield electron acceleration is identified and described. It is shown that a laser prepulse can create an ionized plasma filament through multiphoton ionization and this heats the electrons and ions, driving an ellipsoidal blast-wave aligned with the laser-axis. The subsequent high-intensity laser-pulse generates a plasma wakefield which, on entering the leading edge of the blast-wave structure, encounters a sharp reduction in electron density, causing density down-ramp electron injection. The injected electrons are accelerated to ∼2 MeV within the blast-wave. After the main laser-pulse has propagated past the blast-wave, it drives a secondary wakefield within the homogenous background plasma. On exiting the blast-wave structure, the preaccelerated electrons encounter these secondary wakefields, are retrapped, and accelerated to higher energies. Due to the longitudinal extent of the blast-wave, only those electrons with small transverse velocity are retrapped, leading to the potential for the generation of electron bunches with reduced transverse size and emittance

Specialised gas targets for controlled injection of electrons into laser-driven wakefields.

Laser-driven wakefield acceleration within capillary discharge waveguides has been used to generate high quality electron bunches with GeV scale energies. However, uncontrolled self-injection by wave-breaking of non-linear plasma waves can lead to large fluctuations in energy spread, divergence and charge of the accelerated bunches. Specialised plasma targets with tailored density profiles offer the possibility to overcome these issues by controlling the injection and acceleration process. This requires precise manipulation of the longitudinal density profile. Therefore we developed plasma targets based on a capillary structure with multiple gas in- and outlets operated at steady-state gas flow. Here we give a detailed overview of the target concept and discuss preliminary experimental results for ionisation injection obtained by utilising these targets at the ASTRA laser at Rutherford Appleton Lab