Concept of a laser-plasma based electron source for sub-10 fs electron diffraction

Abstract

We propose a new concept of an electron source for ultrafast electron diffraction with sub-10~fs temporal resolution. Electrons are generated in a laser-plasma accelerator, able to deliver femtosecond electron bunches at 5 MeV energy with kHz repetition rate. The possibility of producing this electron source is demonstrated using Particle-In-Cell simulations. We then use particle tracking simulations to show that this electron beam can be transported and manipulated in a realistic beamline, in order to reach parameters suitable for electron diffraction. The beamline consists of realistic static magnetic optics and introduces no temporal jitter. We demonstrate numerically that electron bunches with 5~fs duration and containing 1.5~fC per bunch can be produced, with a transverse coherence length exceeding 2~nm, as required for electron diffraction.

References in corpus (4)

• Generating multi-GeV electron bunches using single stage laser wakefield acceleration in a 3D nonlinear regime
• Compression of CEP-stable multi-mJ laser pulses down to 4 fs in long hollow fibers
• Multi-MeV electron acceleration by sub-terawatt laser pulses
• Demonstration of relativistic electron beam focusing by a laser-plasma lens

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Relativistic electron beams driven by kHz single-cycle light pulses
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• Laser-accelerated, low divergence 15 MeV quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches at 1 kHz
• Interaction of ultraintense radially-polarized laser pulses with plasma mirrors
• Optimization and stabilization of a kilohertz laser-plasma accelerator
• Symmetric and asymmetric shocked gas jets for laser-plasma experiments
• Carrier-envelope phase controlled dynamics of relativistic electron beams in a laser-wakefield accelerator
• Ultrafast Electron Diffraction: Visualizing Dynamic States of Matter
• Emittance preservation in advanced accelerators