Generation of 100-MeV attosecond electron bunches with terawatt few-cycle laser pulses

Xing-Long Zhu, Wei-Yuan Liu, Min Chen, Su-Ming Weng, Feng He, Ralph Assmann, Zheng-Ming Sheng, Jie Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)
57 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Laser-wakefield acceleration has been demonstrated to be a promising technique for compact electron accelerators. However, it is still challenging to achieve high-quality 100-MeV electron bunches of sub-femtosecond duration with current techniques. Here, we present and numerically demonstrate an efficient scheme to produce such high-energy tunable ultrashort electron bunches, which is achieved by the use of a nonlinear wakefield driven by a terawatt few-cycle laser pulse in a new structure of plasma channel. With the driving laser pulse energy of 25mJ only, the resulting electron bunch can reach 101 MeV with 7.8 pC charge, ~4 mrad divergence, ~3% energy spread, energy efficiency above 3%, and a duration of hundreds of attoseconds. As such laser pulses may be obtained with a kilohertz repetition rate and high stability, our scheme could be interesting for ultrafast science and accelerator community.
Original languageEnglish
Article number044039
Number of pages16
JournalPhysical Review Applied
Volume15
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Apr 2021

Keywords

  • generation
  • 100-MeV
  • attosecond electron bunches
  • terawatt few-cycle laser pulses
  • laser driven electron acceleration
  • electron beams
  • optics
  • laser wakefield acceleration
  • ultrafast optics
  • particle acceleration in plasmas

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Generation of 100-MeV attosecond electron bunches with terawatt few-cycle laser pulses'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this