Extensive study of electron acceleration by relativistic surface plasmons

Abstract

The excitation of surface plasmons with ultra-intense ($I\sim 5\times 10^{19}$ W/cm${}^2$), high contrast ($\sim 10^{12}$) laser pulses on periodically-modulated solid targets has been recently demonstrated to produce collimated bunches of energetic electrons along the target surface [Fedeli et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 5001 (2016)]. Here we report an extensive experimental and numerical study aimed to a complete characterization of the acceleration mechanism, demonstrating its robustness and promising characteristics for an electron source. By comparing different grating structures, we identify the relevant parameters to optimize the acceleration and obtain bunches of $\sim 650$ pC of charge at several MeV of energy with blazed gratings.

arXiv comment10 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Vacuum laser acceleration of relativistic electrons using plasma mirror injectors
• Evidence of resonant surface wave excitation in the relativistic regime through measurements of proton acceleration from grating targets
• Electron acceleration by relativistic surface plasmons in laser-grating interaction
• The Effects of Front-Surface Target Structures on Properties of Relativistic Laser-Plasma Electrons
• Relativistic surface-plasmon enhanced harmonic generation from gratings

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Surface plasmons in superintense laser-solid interactions
• Monoenergetic High-energy Ion Source via Femtosecond Laser Incident Parallel to a Microplate
• Surface Plasmon-Driven Electron and Proton Acceleration without Grating Coupling
• Extreme high field plasmonics: electron acceleration and XUV harmonic generation from ultrashort surface plasmons
• Ultrashort high energy electron bunches from tunable surface plasma waves driven with laser wavefront rotation
• Key parameters for surface plasma wave excitation in the ultra-high intensity regime
• Piecewise acceleration of electrons across a periodic solid-state structure irradiated by intense laser pulse