Generation of tunable, 100–800 MeV quasi-monoenergetic electron beams from a laser-wakefield accelerator in the blowout regime

Authors

• Sudeep Banerjee, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Nathan D. Powers, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Viswanathan Ramanathan, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• I. Ghebregziabher, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• Kevin J. Brown, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• C. Maharjan, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• Shouyuan Chen, CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon Cedex, FranceFollow
• A. Beck, CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon Cedex, France
• E. Lefebvre, CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon Cedex, France
• Serguei Y. Kalmykov, CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon Cedex, FranceFollow
• Bradley Allan Shadwick, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Donald Umstadter, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2012

Citation

PHYSICS OF PLASMAS 19, 056703 (2012); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4718711

Comments

Copyright 2012 American Institute of Physics. Use by permission.

Abstract

In this paper, we present results on a scalable high-energy electron source based on laser wakefield acceleration. The electron accelerator using 30–80 TW, 30 fs laser pulses, operates in the blowout regime, and produces high-quality, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams in the range 100–800 MeV. These beams have angular divergence of 1–4 mrad, and 5%–25% energy spread, with a resulting brightness 10¹¹ electrons mm^-2 MeV^-1 mrad^-2. The beam parameters can be tuned by varying the laser and plasma conditions. The use of a high-quality laser pulse and appropriate target conditions enables optimization of beam quality, concentrating a significant fraction of the accelerated charge into the quasi-monoenergetic component.