Generation of femtosecond electron bunches and hard x-rays by ultra-intense laser wake field acceleration in a gas jet

Abstract

Femtosecond electron beams and hard X-rays with /spl lambda//spl sim/0.1 nm may find various applications in biology, chemistry, and molectronics giving a new time-scale probe analysis. Such short electron beams can be produced in the wake field acceleration by short relativistically intense laser pulses and then Thomson scattering of a second laser pulse can serve for efficient generation of very short X-rays with use of such electron beams.