Abstract
High-intensity X-ray sources are essential diagnostic tools for science, technology and medicine. Such X-ray sources can be produced in laser-plasma accelerators, where electrons emit short-wavelength radiation due to their betatron oscillations in the plasma wake of a laser pulse. Contemporary available betatron radiation X-ray sources can deliver a collimated X-ray pulse of duration on the order of several femtoseconds from a source size of the order of several micrometres. In this paper we demonstrate, through particle-in-cell simulations, that the temporal resolution of such a source can be enhanced by an order of magnitude by a spatial modulation of the emitting relativistic electron bunch. The modulation is achieved by the interaction of the that electron bunch with a co-propagating laser beam which results in the generation of a train of equidistant sub-femtosecond X-ray pulses. The distance between the single pulses of a train is tuned by the wavelength of the modulation laser pulse. The modelled experimental setup is achievable with current technologies. Potential applications include stroboscopic sampling of ultrafast fundamental processes.
Highlights
High-intensity X-ray sources are essential diagnostic tools for science, technology and medicine
Sub-femtosecond high brightness X-ray pulses are in high demand by research communities in the fields of biology, material science or femtochemistry[1], as well as by industry and m edicine[2]. Such pulses can be used as a diagnostic tool to resolve the structure and dynamics of dense matter, proteins, and study fundamental physical phenomena such as chemical reactions, lattice vibrations or phase transitions
The electron bunch is located in the rear part of the bubble
Summary
High-intensity X-ray sources are essential diagnostic tools for science, technology and medicine Such X-ray sources can be produced in laser-plasma accelerators, where electrons emit short-wavelength radiation due to their betatron oscillations in the plasma wake of a laser pulse. X-ray sources are produced by large scale facilities based on radiation emission by relativistic electron bunches, e.g. synchrotron light s ources[3] and X-ray free electron lasers[4]. This limits their general availability for many of the potential users.
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