Relativistic acceleration of electrons injected by a plasma mirror into a radially polarized laser beam

Abstract

We propose a method to generate femtosecond, relativistic and high-charge electron bunches using few-cycle and tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses. In this scheme, the incident laser pulse reflects off an overdense plasma that injects electrons into the reflected pulse. Particle-In-Cell simulations show that the plasma injects electrons ideally, resulting in a dramatic increase of charge and energy of the accelerated electron bunch in comparison to previous methods. This method can be used to generate femtosecond pC bunches with energies in the 1-10 MeV range using realistic laser parameters corresponding to current kHz laser systems.

References in corpus (9)

• Relativistic electron beams driven by kHz single-cycle light pulses
• Vacuum laser acceleration of relativistic electrons using plasma mirror injectors
• Compression of CEP-stable multi-mJ laser pulses down to 4 fs in long hollow fibers
• Direct laser acceleration of electrons in free-space
• Direct acceleration of an electron in infinite vacuum by a pulsed radially-polarized laser beam
• High Repetition-Rate Wakefield Electron Source Generated by Few-millijoule, 30 femtosecond Laser Pulses on a Density Downramp
• Femtosecond 240-keV electron pulses from direct laser acceleration in a low-density gas
• Effect of the laser wavefront in a laser-plasma accelerator
• On the validity of the paraxial approximation for electron acceleration with radially polarized laser beams

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Generation of ultra-relativistic monoenergetic electron bunches via a synergistic interaction of longitudinal electric and magnetic fields of a twisted laser
• Interaction of ultraintense radially-polarized laser pulses with plasma mirrors
• On the importance of frequency-dependent beam parameters for vacuum acceleration with few-cycle radially-polarized laser beams
• Influence of longitudinal chromatism on vacuum acceleration by intense radially polarized laser beams
• Advances in laser-plasma interactions using intense vortex laser beams
• Electron acceleration in direct laser-solid interactions far beyond the ponderomotive limit
• Electron Acceleration Using Twisted Laser Wavefronts
• Intense high harmonic vector beams from relativistic plasma mirrors
• Stable attosecond electron bunches from a nanofiber driven by Laguerre-Gaussian lasers
• High-charge relativistic electrons by vacuum laser acceleration from plasma mirrors using flying focus pulses