2015/01/21 by Sergio Carbajo, Emilio A. Nanni, Liang Jie Wong +6 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Acceleration #Axicon #Electron #Femtosecond #Laser #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers #Particle accelerator #Ultrafast electron diffraction #Ultrashort pulse #physics.acc-ph #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevaccelbeams.19.021303
arxiv created 2015/01/21 · openalex publication_date 2016/02/24 · arxiv updated 2016/04/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Compact laser-driven accelerators are pursued heavily worldwide because they make novel methods and tools invented at national laboratories widely accessible in science, health, security, and technology [V. Malka et al., Principles and applications of compact laser-plasma accelerators, Nat. Phys. 4, 447 (2008)]. Current leading laser-based accelerator technologies [S. P. D. Mangles et al., Monoenergetic beams of relativistic electrons from intense laser-plasma interactions, Nature (London) 431, 535 (2004); T. Toncian et al., Ultrafast laser-driven microlens to focus and energy-select mega-electron volt protons, Science 312, 410 (2006); S. Tokita et al. Single-shot ultrafast electron diffraction with a laser-accelerated sub-MeV electron pulse, Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 111911 (2009)] rely on a medium to assist the light to particle energy transfer. The medium imposes material limitations or may introduce inhomogeneous fields [J. R. Dwyer et al., Femtosecond electron diffraction: ``Making the molecular movie,'', Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 364, 741 (2006)]. The advent of few cycle ultraintense radially polarized lasers [S. Carbajo et al., Efficient generation of ultraintense few-cycle radially polarized laser pulses, Opt. Lett. 39, 2487 (2014)] has ushered in a novel accelerator concept [L. J. Wong and F. X. K"artner, Direct acceleration of an electron in infinite vacuum by a pulsed radially polarized laser beam, Opt. Express 18, 25035 (2010); F. Pierre-Louis et al. Direct-field electron acceleration with ultrafast radially polarized laser beams: Scaling laws and optimization, J. Phys. B 43, 025401 (2010); Y. I. Salamin, Electron acceleration from rest in vacuum by an axicon Gaussian laser beam, Phys. Rev. A 73, 043402 (2006); C. Varin and M. Pich'e, Relativistic attosecond electron pulses from a free-space laser-acceleration scheme, Phys. Rev. E 74, 045602 (2006); A. Sell and F. X. K"artner, Attosecond electron bunches accelerated and compressed by radially polarized laser pulses and soft-x-ray pulses from optical undulators, J. Phys. B 47, 015601 (2014)] avoiding the need of a medium or guiding structure entirely to achieve strong longitudinal energy transfer. Here we present the first observation of direct longitudinal laser acceleration of nonrelativistic electrons that undergo highly directional multi-GeV/m accelerating gradients. This demonstration opens a new frontier for direct laser-driven particle acceleration capable of creating well collimated and relativistic attosecond electron bunches [C. Varin and M. Pich'e, Relativistic attosecond electron pulses from a free-space laser-acceleration scheme, Phys. Rev. E 74, 045602 (2006)] and x-ray pulses [A. Sell and F. X. K"artner, Attosecond electron bunches accelerated and compressed by radially polarized laser pulses and soft-x-ray pulses from optical undulators, J. Phys. B 47, 015601 (2014)].