Ultrarelativistic electron beams accelerated by terawatt scalable kHz laser

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the generation of high-quality, ultrarelativistic electron beams at 1 kHz using a scalable laser system, advancing potential applications in medical imaging and cancer treatment.

Contribution

It introduces a laser-driven method for producing collimated, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams at kHz repetition rates with energies up to 50 MeV, utilizing a novel OPCPA laser system.

Findings

Electron beams with 2 mrad divergence and 25% energy spread achieved.

Electron energies up to 50 MeV at 1 kHz repetition rate.

Potential for high-brilliance x-ray sources and medical applications.

Abstract

We show the laser-driven acceleration of unprecedented, collimated ($ 2 \ \mathrm{mrad} $ divergence), and quasi-monoenergetic ($ 25 \ \% $ energy spread) electron beams with energy up to $ 50 \ \mathrm{MeV} $ at $ 1 \ \mathrm{kHz} $ repetition rate. The laser driver is a multi-cycle ($ 15 \ \mathrm{fs} $) $ 1 \ \mathrm{kHz} $ optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system, operating at $ 26 \ \mathrm{mJ} $ ($ 1.7 \ \mathrm{TW} $). The scalability of the driver laser technology and the electron beams reported in this work pave the way towards developing high-brilliance x-ray sources for medical imaging, innovative devices for brain cancer treatment, and represent a step towards the realization of a kHz GeV electron beamline.