High energy electron beams from a laser wakefield acceleration with a long gas jet

Abstract

A long gas jet was used as a gas target for laser wake field acceleration to increase the energy and quality of the electron beam. When the plasma density was 7 × 1018 cm−3, quasi monoenergetic electron beams with a maximum energy of 152 MeV, a beam divergence 3 mrad, and a pointing stability 4 mrad were generated with a 5 mm long gas jet. The maximum energy was close to the theoretical limit predicted from the bubble model. This means that the length of the plasma was sufficiently long to accelerate the electron to the dephasing length after the electrons were self-injected by self-focusing. As the plasma density increased, the dephasing length decreased and the electron energy decreased. The continuous injection with higher density plasmas generated highly diverging beams. As the laser power increased, a number of electron beams with different propagation directions were generated. As shown by the measured shadowgram, the laser was divided into several filaments and each filament accelerated electron beam having different directions. The electron beam generated at this time decreased as the laser energy decreased due the division of the laser into different directions.