Plasmon-Driven Acceleration in a Photo-Excited Nanotube

TL;DR

This paper explores a theoretical and numerical approach to high-field particle acceleration using photo-excited plasmons in carbon nanotubes, demonstrating potential for compact, high-gradient accelerators driven by tabletop femtosecond lasers.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework for plasmon-driven acceleration in nanotubes, including practical parameters and optimization strategies.

Findings

Achievable acceleration gradients depend on laser angle and nanotube filling ratio.

Energy gains are significant within dephasing lengths and nanotube dimensions.

The study provides practical guidelines for experimental realization.

Abstract

A plasmon-assisted channeling acceleration can be realized with a large channel, possibly at the nanometer scale. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are the most typical example of nano-channels that can confine a large number of channeled particles in a photon-plasmon coupling condition. This paper presents a theoretical and numerical study on the concept of high-field charge acceleration driven by photo-excited Luttinger-liquid plasmons (LLP) in a nanotube. An analytic description of the plasmon-assisted laser acceleration is detailed with practical acceleration parameters, in particular with specifications of a typical tabletop femtosecond laser system. The maximally achievable acceleration gradients and energy gains within dephasing lengths and CNT lengths are discussed with respect to laser-incident angles and CNT-filling ratios.