Unforeseen advantage of looser focusing in vacuum laser accelerationShow others and affiliations
2024 (English)In: Communications Physics, E-ISSN 2399-3650, Vol. 7, no 1, article id 293Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Acceleration of electrons in vacuum directly by intense laser fields holds great promise for the generation of high-charge, ultrashort, relativistic electron bunches. While the energy gain is expected to be higher with tighter focusing, this does not account for the reduced acceleration range, which is limited by diffraction. Here, we present the results of an experimental investigation that exposed nanotips to relativistic few-cycle laser pulses. We demonstrate the vacuum laser acceleration of electron beams with 100s pC charge and 15 MeV energy. Two different focusing geometries, with normalized vector potential a0 of 9.8 and 3.8, produced comparable overall charge and electron spectra, despite a factor of almost ten difference in peak intensity. Our results are in good agreement with 3D particle-in-cell simulations, which indicate the importance of dephasing.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature, 2024. Vol. 7, no 1, article id 293
National Category
Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics Accelerator Physics and Instrumentation
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-229418DOI: 10.1038/s42005-024-01781-9ISI: 001303229500001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85202918063OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-229418DiVA, id: diva2:1896152
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-02376Swedish Research Council, 2020-05111Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, 2019.0140The Kempe Foundations, SMK21-00172024-09-092024-09-092024-09-09Bibliographically approved