Ultrashort electron bunches generated with high-intensity lasers: Applications to injectors and x-ray sources

S. Fritzler (1) , Kim Ta Phuoc (1) , Victor Malka (1) , Antoine Rousse (1) , E. Lefebvre (2)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 DPTA - Département de Physique Théorique et Appliquée

The efficiency of the “forced laser wakefield” regime has recently been demonstrated, with the acceleration of electrons up to 200 MeV with a short pulse, 10 Hz laser [V. Malka et al., Science 298, 1596 (2002)]. Numerical simulations presented in this letter provide strong indications that the resulting electron bunches also have very short durations, less than 100 fs. All these features combine to suggest a number of interesting applications for such a source. We discuss its use as a high-energy injector for conventional accelerators, and assess the characteristics of the x-ray pulses that could be obtained via the channelling effect or Thomson scattering with this electron pulse.

Keywords: particle beam bunching; electron sources; particle beam injection; X-ray production; wakefield accelerators; plasma production by laser

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

S. Fritzler, Kim Ta Phuoc, Victor Malka, Antoine Rousse, E. Lefebvre. Ultrashort electron bunches generated with high-intensity lasers: Applications to injectors and x-ray sources. Applied Physics Letters, 2003, 83 (19), pp.3888. ⟨10.1063/1.1626016⟩. ⟨hal-00517164⟩