MeV femtosecond electron pulses from direct-field acceleration in low density atomic gases
arXiv:1505.08016 · doi:10.1088/0953-4075/49/2/024001
Abstract
Using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we show that few-MeV electrons can be produced by focusing tightly few-cycle radially-polarized laser pulses in a low-density atomic gas. In particular, it is observed that for the few-TW laser power needed to reach relativistic electron energies, longitudinal attosecond microbunching occurs naturally, resulting in femtosecond structures with high-contrast attosecond density modulations. The three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that in the relativistic regime the leading pulse of these attosecond substructures survives to propagation over extended distances, suggesting that it could be delivered to a distant target, with the help of a properly designed transport beamline.
11 pages, accepted for publication in J. Phys. B
References in corpus (5)
- Dielectric Laser Acceleration
- Developments in laser-driven plasma accelerators
- Laser-based acceleration of non-relativistic electrons at a dielectric structure
- Femtosecond 240-keV electron pulses from direct laser acceleration in a low-density gas
- Electron acceleration driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses