Electron and Proton Beams Produced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Abstract : It is known that relativistic laser–plasma interactions can induce accelerating fields beyond 1 TV/m. Such electric fields are capable of efficiently accelerating plasma background electrons as well as protons. Depending on the target medium, high-quality particle beams can be generated. An introduction to the current state of the art will be given, and possible applications of these optically induced charged particle beams will be discussed.