The production of high-energy electrons from the interaction of an intense laser pulse with an underdense plasma

Z. Najmudin (1) , K. Krushelnick (1) , E. L. Clark (1) , D.J. Colling (1) , M. Tatarakis (1) , A. Modena (1) , A.E. Dangor (1) , Jérôme Faure (2, 3) , Victor Malka (3, 4) , D. Gordon (5, 6) , C. Joshi (5)

1 Blackett Laboratory
2 LBNL - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Berkeley]
3 LULI - Laboratoire pour l'utilisation des lasers intenses
4 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
5 University of California
6 Plasma Physics Division

The interaction of an intense laser pulse (intensity, greater than 10^19 Wcm^-2) has been studied with underdense deuterium plasmas. The laser pulse is found to be self-modulated at the plasma frequency by the Raman forward-scatter instability. Wave breaking of the resulting plasma wave causes high-energy electrons to be accelerated beyond 100MeV.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Z. Najmudin, K. Krushelnick, E. L. Clark, D.J. Colling, M. Tatarakis, et al.. The production of high-energy electrons from the interaction of an intense laser pulse with an underdense plasma. Journal of Modern Optics, 2003, 50 (3/4), pp.673 - 681. ⟨10.1080/09500340210149705⟩. ⟨hal-00521198⟩