High field physics at ALLS

This paper discusses some aspect of the experimental effort in high field science (up to 1022 W/cm2) done with the high peak power (>200TW) laser system at the Advanced Laser Light Source facility (ALLS). A maximum intensity of 1022 W/cm2 has been achieved on target. The present experiments explore the acceleration of electrons directly by the laser field (DLFA) in the transition between the relativistic and ultra-relatisitic regimes. Electrons are accelerated to multi-MeV energies using radially (TM01) and azimuthally (TE01) polarized modes and the contribution of various acceleration processes is briefly discussed.

[1]  Charles Varin,et al.  Acceleration of ultra-relativistic electrons using high-intensity TM01 laser beams , 2002 .

[2]  G. Lambert,et al.  Femtosecond x rays from laser-plasma accelerators , 2013, 1301.5066.

[3]  B. Quesnel,et al.  Comment on ``Experimental Observation of Electrons Accelerated in Vacuum to Relativistic Energies by a High-Intensity Laser'' , 1998 .

[4]  K. Z. Hatsagortsyan,et al.  Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems , 2011, 1111.3886.

[5]  Kirk T. McDonald,et al.  Comment on "Experimental Observation of Electrons Accelerated in Vacuum to Relativistic Energies by a High-Intensity Laser" , 1998 .

[6]  Michel Piché,et al.  Generation of a beam of fast electrons by tightly focusing a radially polarized ultrashort laser pulse , 2012 .

[7]  Eric Esarey,et al.  Physics of laser-driven plasma-based electron accelerators , 2009 .

[8]  Andrew G. Glen,et al.  APPL , 2001 .

[9]  G. Malka,et al.  Experimental Observation of Electrons Accelerated in Vacuum to Relativistic Energies by a High-Intensity Laser , 1997 .

[10]  Charles Varin,et al.  Direct Electron Acceleration with Radially Polarized Laser Beams , 2013 .

[11]  V Malka,et al.  Single shot phase contrast imaging using laser-produced Betatron x-ray beams. , 2011, Optics letters.

[12]  Michel Piché,et al.  Electron acceleration driven by ultrashort and nonparaxial radially polarized laser pulses. , 2012, Optics letters.

[13]  S. V. Bulanov,et al.  Optics in the relativistic regime , 2006 .

[14]  J. Kieffer,et al.  Laser wakefield generated X-ray probe for femtosecond time-resolved measurements of ionization states of warm dense aluminum. , 2013, The Review of scientific instruments.

[15]  Charles Varin,et al.  Tunable high-repetition-rate femtosecond few-hundred keV electron source , 2015 .

[16]  Zulfikar Najmudin,et al.  X-ray phase contrast imaging of biological specimens with femtosecond pulses of betatron radiation from a compact laser plasma wakefield accelerator , 2011 .