Spatial profile of accelerated electrons from ponderomotive scattering in hydrogen cluster targets

Abstract

We study the laser-driven acceleration of electrons from overdense hydrogen clusters to energies of up to 13 MeV in laser forward direction and several hundreds of keV in an outer ring-like structure. The use of cryogenic hydrogen allows for high repetition-rate operation and examination of the influence of source parameters like temperature and gas flow. The outer ring-like structure of accelerated electrons, originating from the interaction, that is robust against the change of laser and target parameters can be observed for low electron densities of ca. 3$\times$10${}^{16}$ cm${}^{-3}$. For higher electron densities, an additional central spot of electrons in the laser forward direction can be observed. Utilizing 3D-PIC simulations, it is revealed that both electron populations mainly stem from ponderomotive scattering.

References in corpus (6)

• Scaling laws for direct laser acceleration in a radiation-reaction dominated regime
• X-Dispersionless Maxwell solver for plasma-based particle acceleration
• Proof-of-principle experiment for nanoparticle-assisted laser wakefield acceleration
• Prospects and limitations of wakefield acceleration in solids
• Nm-sized cryogenic hydrogen clusters for a laser-driven proton source
• Nonlinear wakefields and electron injection in cluster plasma