Generation of attosecond electron bunches and X-ray pulses from few-cycle femtosecond laser pulses

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through simulations that low-energy, ultra-short laser pulses can generate stable attosecond electron bunches in plasma accelerators, which produce high-brilliance attosecond X-ray bursts for ultrafast matter probing.

Contribution

It shows, via Particle-in-Cell simulations, that controlled injection with ultra-short laser pulses can produce stable, isolated attosecond electron bunches in plasma accelerators.

Findings

Attosecond electron bunches can be generated using low-energy, ultra-short laser pulses.

Controlled injection regime yields stable, isolated attosecond electron bunches.

These electron bunches emit high-brilliance attosecond X-ray bursts.

Abstract

Laser-plasma electron accelerators can be used to produce high-intensity X-rays, as electrons accelerated in wakefields emit radiation due to betatron oscillations.Such X-ray sources inherit the features of the electron beam; sub-femtosecond electron bunches produce betatron sources of the same duration, which in turn allow probing matter on ultrashort time scales. In this paper we show, via Particle-in-Cell simulations, that attosecond electron bunches can be obtained using low-energy, ultra-short laser beams both in the self-injection and the controlled injection regimes at low plasma densities. However, only in the controlled regime does the electron injection lead to a stable, isolated attosecond electron bunch. Such ultrashort electron bunches are shown to emit attosecond X-ray bursts with high brilliance