Developments in laser-driven plasma accelerators

Abstract

Laser-driven plasma accelerators provide acceleration gradients three orders of magnitude greater than conventional machines, offering the potential to shrink the length of accelerators by the same factor. To date, laser-acceleration of electron beams to particle energies comparable to those offered by synchrotron light sources has been demonstrated with plasma acceleration stages only a few centimetres long. This article describes the principles of operation of laser-driven plasma accelerators, and reviews their development from their proposal in 1979 to recent demonstrations. The potential applications of plasma accelerators are described and the challenges which must be overcome before they can become a practical tool are discussed.

References in corpus (4)

• Design considerations for table-top, laser-based VUV and X-ray free electron lasers
• Single shot phase contrast imaging using laser-produced Betatron x-ray beams
• Non-invasive characterization of transverse beam emittance of electrons from a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator in the bubble regime using betatron x-ray radiation
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Cited by in corpus (51)

• Automation and control of laser wakefield accelerators using Bayesian optimisation
• New insights in laser-generated ultra-intense gamma-ray and neutron sources for nuclear applications and science
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• Multi-chromatic narrow-energy-spread electron bunches from laser wakefield acceleration with dual-color lasers
• Direct observation of the injection dynamics of a laser wakefield accelerator using few-femtosecond shadowgraphy
• Synergistic Laser Wakefield/Direct Laser Acceleration in the Plasma Bubble Regime
• Laser-Induced Linear Electron Acceleration in Free Space
• Low-Density Hydrodynamic Optical-Field-Ionized Plasma Channels Generated With An Axicon Lens
• Energy-chirp compensation in laser wakefield accelerators
• Excitation and Control of Plasma Wakefields by Multiple Laser Pulses
• Direct observation of plasma waves and dynamics induced by laser-accelerated electron beams
• Multi-Pulse Laser Wakefield Acceleration: A New Route to Efficient, High-Repetition-Rate Plasma Accelerators and High Flux Radiation Sources
• Meter-Scale, Conditioned Hydrodynamic Optical-Field-Ionized Plasma Channels
• Backward-Propagating MeV Electrons in Ultra-Intense Laser Interactions: Standing Wave Acceleration and Coupling to the Reflected Laser Pulse
• The physics and applications of strongly coupled plasmas levitated in electrodynamic traps
• Plasma wakefield excitation by incoherent laser pulses: a path towards high-average power laser-plasma accelerators
• Vacuum laser acceleration of super-ponderomotive electrons using relativistic transparency injection
• Interferometric optical signature of electron microbunching in laser-driven plasma accelerators
• Demonstration of kilohertz operation of Hydrodynamic Optical-Field-Ionized Plasma Channels
• The impact of quantum effects on relativistic electron motion in a chaotic regime
• Evolution of the self-injection process in the transition of an LWFA from self-modulation to blowout regime
• Dosimetric characterisation and application to radiation biology of a kHz laser-driven electron beam
• Relativistic electron beam driven longitudinal wake-wave breaking in a cold plasma
• Sub-femtosecond wakefield injector and accelerator based on an undulating plasma bubble controlled by a laser phase
• Direct laser acceleration of electrons in high-Z gas target and effect of threshold plasma density on electron beam generation
• MeV femtosecond electron pulses from direct-field acceleration in low density atomic gases
• Charge coupling in multi-stage laser wakefield acceleration
• Laser-Pulse and Electron-Bunch Plasma Wakefield Accelerator
• Witness emittance growth caused by driver density fluctuations in plasma wakefield accelerators
• Attosecond gamma-ray flashes and electron-positron pairs in dyadic laser interaction with micro-wire
• Proton beam self-modulation seeded by electron bunch in plasma with density ramp
• Single-scan, dual-functional interferometer for fast spatiotemporal characterization of few-cycle pulses
• Stable bunch trains for plasma wakefield acceleration
• Stationary striations in plasma, created by a short microwave pulse in a waveguide filled with a neutral gas
• Electron Beam Chirp Dexterity in Staging Laser Wakefield Acceleration
• Accelerating field enhancement due to ion motion in plasma wakefield accelerators
• Multi-proton bunch driven hollow plasma wakefield acceleration in the nonlinear regime
• A compact, all-optical positron production and collection scheme
• Tunable X-ray source by Thomson scattering during laser-wakefield acceleration
• Whitepaper submitted to Snowmass21: Advanced accelerator linear collider demonstration facility at intermediate energy
• Faraday rotation study of plasma bubbles in GeV wakefield accelerators
• Induced THz transitions in Rydberg caesium atoms for application in antihydrogen experiments
• Control of transverse motion and X-ray emission of electrons accelerated in laser-driven wakefields by tuning laser spatial chirp
• Attenuation of waveguide modes in narrow metal capillaries
• Wakefield Excited by Ultrashort Laser Pulses in Near-Critical Density Plasmas
• Polarization control of electron injection and acceleration in the plasma by a self steepening laser pulse
• Enhanced wakefield generation in homogeneous plasma via two co-propagating laser pulses
• GeV-scale accelerators driven by plasma-modulated pulses from kilohertz lasers
• Laser undulator by laser ponderomotive force
• Beam dynamics challenges in linear colliders based on laser-plasma accelerators