Quasimonoenergetic collimated electron beams from a laser wakefield acceleration in low density pure nitrogen
- Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (MOE) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240 (China)
- Bejing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190 (China)
A laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) experiment is performed using 30 TW, 30 fs, and 800 nm laser pulses, focused onto pure nitrogen plasma having relatively low densities in the range of 0.8×10{sup 18} cm{sup −3} to 2.7×10{sup 18} cm{sup −3}. Electron beams having a low divergence of ∼3 mrad (full-width at half-maximum) and quasi-monoenergetic peak energies of ∼105 MeV are achieved over 4-mm interaction length. The total electron beam charge reached to 2 nC, however, only 1%–2% of this (tens of pC) had energies >35 MeV. We tried different conditions to optimize the electron beam acceleration; our experiment verifies that lower nitrogen plasma densities are generating electron beams with high quality in terms of divergence, charge, pointing stability, and maximum energy. In addition, if LWFA is to be widely used as a basis for compact particle accelerators in the future, therefore, from the economic and safety points of view we propose the use of nitrogen gas rather than helium or hydrogen.
- OSTI ID:
- 22304098
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 7; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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