Plasmonic Meta-Surface for Efficient Ultra-Short Pulse Laser-Driven Particle Acceleration

TL;DR

This paper proposes a plasmonic nano-antenna based laser-driven particle accelerator that enhances electric fields to achieve high acceleration gradients with ultra-short laser pulses, potentially reaching 11.6 GV/m.

Contribution

It introduces a novel plasmonic meta-surface design optimized for ultra-short laser pulses to improve particle acceleration efficiency and gradient.

Findings

Supports ultra-short laser pulses up to 16 femtoseconds

Achieves potential acceleration gradients of 11.6 GV/m

Enhances electric field localization using nano-antennas

Abstract

A laser-driven particle accelerator based on plasmonic nano-antennas is proposed and analyzed. The concept utilizes the enhancement and localization of the electric field by nano-antennas to maximize the acceleration gradient and to overcome potential metallic losses. The structure is optimized for accelerating relativistic particles using a femto-second laser source operating at 800nm, and is shown to support the bandwidth of ultra-short laser pulses (up to 16fsec) while providing a high acceleration gradient potentially reaching 11.6GV/m.