All-optical blast wave control of laser wakefield acceleration in near critical plasma

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel all-optical method using a cylindrical blast wave to precisely control the interaction length and improve the quality of laser wakefield accelerated electron beams in near-critical plasma.

Contribution

It presents a new technique employing a nanosecond laser pulse to create shock fronts that regulate acceleration length and enhance electron beam quality in laser wakefield acceleration.

Findings

Demonstrated experimental control of electron energy and divergence.

Showed improved beam quality through plasma lensing effects.

Validated the approach with numerical simulations.

Abstract

We propose a novel method for changing the length of laser wakefield electron acceleration in a gas jet by a cylindrical blast wave created by a perpendicularly focused nanosecond laser pulse. The shock front destroys the wake thus stopping interaction between the laser pulse and accelerated electron bunch allowing one to directly control the interaction length and avoid dephasing. It also improves the electron beam quality through the plasma lensing effect between the two shock fronts. We demonstrated both experimentally and numerically how this approach can be used to form quasi-monoenergetic electron bunch with controlled energy and improved divergence as well as to track changes in the bunch parameters during acceleration.