Relativistic laser driven electron accelerator using micro-channel plasma targets

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates efficient electron acceleration beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets with laser interaction, showing significant improvements over flat targets and confirming the guiding effect via simulations.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel micro-channel plasma target structure that enhances laser-driven electron acceleration, supported by experimental results and 3D particle-in-cell simulations.

Findings

Electron energy cutoff increased by over 2.6 times compared to flat targets.

Total energy in electrons >5 MeV increased by over 10 times.

Simulations confirm the guiding effect and efficiency of the micro-channel structure.

Abstract

We present an experimental demonstration of the efficient acceleration of electrons beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets. We employed a high-contrast, 2.5 J, 32 fs short pulse laser interacting with a 5 \mu m inner diameter, 300 \mu m long micro-channel plasma target. The micro-channel was aligned to be collinear with the incident laser pulse, confining the majority of the laser energy within the channel. The measured electron spectrum showed a large increase of the cut-off energy and slope temperature when compared to that from a 2 \mu m flat Copper target, with the cutoff energy enhanced by over 2.6 times and the total energy in electrons >5 MeV enhanced by over 10 times. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations confirm efficient direct laser acceleration enabled by the novel structure as the dominant acceleration mechanism for the high energy electrons. The simulations further reveal the guiding effect of the channel that successfully explains preferential acceleration on the laser/channel axis observed in experiments. Finally, systematic simulations provide scalings for the energy and charge of the electron pulses. Our results show that the micro-channel plasma target is a promising electron source for applications such as ion acceleration, Bremsstrahlung X-ray radiation, and THZ generation.