MeV electron acceleration at 1 kHz with <10mJ laser pulses

TL;DR

This paper reports the first demonstration of laser-driven electron acceleration to MeV energies at a 1 kHz repetition rate using laser pulses under 10 mJ focused on near-critical density gas jets, achieving high repetition rates and significant electron energies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel high-repetition-rate laser acceleration method using low-energy pulses on near-critical gas jets, enabling efficient MeV electron production.

Findings

Achieved MeV electron energies at 1 kHz with <10mJ pulses.

Generated ~0.5MeV electrons with 1.3mJ pulses.

Produced >1MeV electrons with 10mJ pulses in gas jets.

Abstract

We demonstrate laser driven acceleration of electrons to MeV-scale energies at 1kHz repetition rate using <10mJ pulses focused on near-critical density He and H2 gas jets. Using the H2 gas jet, electron acceleration to ~0.5MeV in ~10fC bunches was observed with laser pulse energy as low as 1.3mJ. Increasing the pulse energy to 10mJ, we measure ~1pC charge bunches with >1MeV energy for both He and H2 gas jets.