All-optical GeV electron bunch generation in a laser-plasma accelerator via truncated-channel injection

We describe a simple scheme, truncated-channel injection, to inject electrons directly into the wakefield driven by a drive pulse guided by an all-optical plasma channel. We use this approach to generate dark-current-free 1.2 GeV, 4.5 % relative energy spread electron bunches with 120 TW laser pulse...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-07
Main Authors: Picksley, A, Chappell, J, Archer, E, Bourgeois, N, Cowley, J, Emerson, D R, Feder, L, Gu, X J, Jakobsson, O, Ross, A J, Wang, W, Walczak, R, Hooker, S M
Format: Article
Language:English
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Electrons
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Summary:We describe a simple scheme, truncated-channel injection, to inject electrons directly into the wakefield driven by a drive pulse guided by an all-optical plasma channel. We use this approach to generate dark-current-free 1.2 GeV, 4.5 % relative energy spread electron bunches with 120 TW laser pulses guided in a 110-mm-long hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized (HOFI) plasma channel. Our experiments and particle-in-cell simulations show that high-quality electron bunches were only obtained when the drive pulse was closely aligned with the channel axis, and was focused close to the density down-ramp formed at the channel entrance. Start-to-end simulations of the channel formation, and electron injection and acceleration show that increasing the channel length to 410 mm would yield 3.65 GeV bunches, with a slice energy spread \(\sim 5 \times 10^{-4}\).
ISSN:2331-8422