Electron acceleration by relativistic surface plasmons in laser-grating interaction

The generation of energetic electron bunches by the interaction of a short, ultra-intense (\(I>10^{19} \textrm{W/cm}^2\)) laser pulse with "grating" targets has been investigated in a regime of ultra-high pulse-to-prepulse contrast (\(10^{12}\)). For incidence angles close to the resona...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2015-08
Main Authors: Fedeli, Luca, Sgattoni, Andrea, Cantono, Giada, Garzella, David, Réau, Fabrice, Prencipe, Irene, Passoni, Matteo, Raynaud, Michèle, Květoň, Milan, Proska, Jan, Macchi, Andrea, Ceccotti, Tiberio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electron acceleration
Electron emission
Incidence angle
Particle in cell technique
Plasmonics
Plasmons
Relativism
Relativistic effects
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Summary:The generation of energetic electron bunches by the interaction of a short, ultra-intense (\(I>10^{19} \textrm{W/cm}^2\)) laser pulse with "grating" targets has been investigated in a regime of ultra-high pulse-to-prepulse contrast (\(10^{12}\)). For incidence angles close to the resonant condition for Surface Plasmon (SP) excitation, a strong electron emission was observed within a narrow cone along the target surface, with energies exceeding 10 MeV. Both the energy and the number of emitted electrons were strongly enhanced with respect to simple flat targets. The experimental data are closely reproduced by three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, which provide evidence for the generation of relativistic SPs and for their role in driving the acceleration process. Besides the possible applications of the scheme as a compact, ultra-short source of MeV electrons, these results are a step forward the development of high field plasmonics.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1508.02328