Counter-crossing injection for stable high-quality electron beam generation via laser-plasma interaction

Abstract

Counter-crossing injection, which is a realistic setup for applications, by two sub-relativistic laser pulses colliding at an angle of 45 degrees is demonstrated. The collision of the two laser pulses generates a high-quality electron beam with high reproducibility. The generated monoenergetic electron beam has a peak energy of 14.4 MeV, an energy spread of 10.6%, a charge of 21.8 pC, a normalized emittance of 1.6 π mm mrad, and a reproducibility of 50%. The electron beam generation is unfolded with two-dimensional-particle-in-cell simulations. The laser pulses in plasma are self-focused to higher intensity when the laser power is above the threshold for relativistic self-focusing. The collision of the self-focused laser pulses generates a high-quality electron beam with high reproducibility.