Stable and polarized Betatron x-ray radiation from a laser plasma accelerator in ionization injection regime

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple method to generate stable, bright, polarized, and tunable Betatron x-ray beams from laser plasma accelerators, overcoming previous shot-to-shot variability issues.

Contribution

The authors present a novel scheme that significantly improves the stability, polarization, and tunability of Betatron x-ray radiation from laser plasma accelerators.

Findings

Pointing stability better than 10% of beam divergence

Flux fluctuation around 20%

Polarization degree up to 80%

Abstract

Betatron x-ray source from laser plasma interaction combines high brightness, few femtosecond duration and broad band energy spectrum. However, despite these unique features the Betatron source has a crippling drawback preventing its use for applications. Its properties significantly vary shot-to-shot and none of the developments performed so far resolved this problem. In this letter we present a simple method that allows to produce stable and bright Betatron x-ray beams. In addition, we demonstrate that this scheme provides polarized and easily tunable radiation. Experimental results show that the pointing stability is better than 10% of the beam divergence, with flux fluctuation of the order of 20% and a polarization degree reaching up to 80%