Laser based synchrotron radiation

Kim Ta Phuoc (1) , Frédéric Burgy (1) , Jean-Philippe Rousseau (1) , Victor Malka (1) , Antoine Rousse (1) , Rahul Shah (2) , Donald Umstadter (2) , A. Pukhov (3) , Sergei Kiselev (3)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 Center for Ultrafast Optical Science
3 Insitut fur Theoretische Physik I

Beams of x rays in the kiloelectronvolt energy range have been produced from laser-matter interaction. Here, energetic electrons are accelerated by a laser wakefield, and experience betatron oscillations in an ion channel formed in the wake of the intense femtosecond laser pulse. Experiments using a 50 TW laser (30 fs duration) are described, as well as comparisons with numerical simulations. These results pave the way of a new generation of radiation in the x-ray spectral range, with a high collimation and an ultrafast pulse duration, produced by the use of compact laser system.

Mots clés: synchrotron radiation; plasma X-ray sources; plasma light propagation; plasma accelerators; wakefield accelerators; betatrons; plasma simulation; plasma production by laser; high-speed optical techniques; plasma oscillations

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]

Kim Ta Phuoc, Frédéric Burgy, Jean-Philippe Rousseau, Victor Malka, Antoine Rousse, et al.. Laser based synchrotron radiation. Physics of Plasmas, 2005, 12 (2), pp.023101. ⟨10.1063/1.1842755⟩. ⟨hal-00574165⟩