Reproducibility of electron beams from laser wakefield acceleration in capillary tubes

Abstract

The stability of accelerated electron beams produced by self-injection of plasma electrons into the wakefield driven by a laser pulse guided inside capillary tubes is analyzed statistically in relation to laser and plasma parameters, and compared to results obtained in a gas jet. The analysis shows that reproducible electron beams are achieved with a charge of 66pC ±11%, a FWHM beam divergence of 9mrad ±14%, a maximum energy of 120MeV ±10% and pointing fluctuations of 2.3mrad using 10mm long, 178μm diameter capillary tubes at an electron density of (10.0±1.5)×1018cm−3. Active stabilization of the laser pointing was used and laser parameters were recorded on each shot. Although the shot-to-shot laser energy fluctuations can account for a fraction of the electrons fluctuations, gas density fluctuations are suspected to be a more important source of instability.