Mono-Energetic Beams from Laser Plasma Interactions
A laser driven wakefield accelerator has been tuned to produce high energy electron bunches with low emittance and energy spread by extending the interaction length using a plasma channel. Wakefield accelerators support gradients thousands of times those achievable in RF accelerators, but short acceleration distance, limited by diffraction, has resulted in low energy beams with 100 percent electron energy spread. In the present experiments on the L'OASIS laser, the relativistically intense drive pulse was guided over 10 diffraction ranges by a plasma channel. At a drive pulse power of 9 TW, electrons were trapped from the plasma and beams of percent energy spread containing > 200 pC charge above 80 MeV and with normalized emittance estimated at< 2pi-mm-mrad were produced. Data and simulations (VORPAL code) show the high quality bunch was formed when beam loading turned off injection after initial trapping, and when the particles were extracted as they dephased from the wake. Up to 4TW was guided without trapping, potentially providing a platform for controlled injection. The plasma channel technique forms the basis of a new class of accelerators, with high gradients and high beam quality.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Director. Office of Science. Office of High EnergyPhysics, DE-FG03-95ER40926 and DE-FG02-01ER41178 and DE-FG02-03ER83857,SciDAC; National Science Foundation Grant 0113907; HertzFoundation
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 876722
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-56964; R&D Project: 455401; BnR: KA1501020; TRN: US0601248
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2005 Particle Accelerator Conference, Knoxville,TN, May 16 - 20, 2005
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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