Betatron Radiation Research Articles

Enhanced betatron oscillations in laser wakefield acceleration by off-axis laser alignment to a capillary plasma waveguide

The generation of betatron radiations by laser-accelerated electron beams is of great interest in the scientific community as it has many applications. In this paper, we propose a new method for the generation of short wavelength betatron radiations. In the new scheme, a high power laser pulse is sent into a capillary plasma waveguide at an off-axis position to intentionally enhance the betatron oscillation amplitude, which can lead to the production of shorter wavelength radiations. We demonstrated that the idea works by 2D particle-in-cell simulations and we also developed a theory to explain the phenomena. In this paper, details of the results are described.

Characterization and application of hard x-ray betatron radiation generated by relativistic electrons from a laser-wakefield accelerator

The necessity for compact table-top x-ray sources with higher brightness, shorter wavelength and shorter pulse duration has led to the development of complementary sources based on laser-plasma accelerators, in contrast to conventional accelerators. Relativistic interaction of short-pulse lasers with underdense plasmas results in acceleration of electrons and in consequence in the emission of spatially coherent radiation, which is known in the literature as betatron radiation. In this article, we report on our recent results in the rapidly developing field of secondary x-ray radiation generated by high-energy electron pulses. The betatron radiation is characterized with a novel setup allowing to measure the energy, the spatial energy distribution in the far-field of the beam and the source size in a single laser shot. Furthermore, the polarization state is measured for each laser shot. In this way, the emitted betatron x-rays can be used as a non-invasive diagnostic tool to retrieve very subtle information of the electron dynamics within the plasma wave. Parallel to the experimental work, 3D particle-in-cell simulations were performed, proved to be in good agreement with the experimental results.

Coherence properties and diagnostics of betatron radiation emitted by an externally-injected electron beam propagating in a plasma channel

A 3-dimensional time-domain simulation of X-ray produced by a laser wakefield accelerated electron beam was performed in order to know its properties like intensity, spectrum, divergence and coherence. Particular attention was paid to the coherence around the acceleration axis. The broad spectrum of betatron radiation (1–10keV) leads to a short coherence length. Nevertheless we observe that under particular detection condition the spatial coherence has a characteristic enlargement. We give a simplified interpretation of this effect in terms of phase shift of the electric field on a virtual detector. Moreover we describe a near field scattering technique to characterize the betatron radiation. This diagnostics will be used to map the transverse spatio-temporal coherence of X-ray radiation in the laser wakefield accelerator under development at Frascati National Laboratories (LNF).

High intensity laser–matter interaction and electron plasma acceleration

The basic principles of the electron acceleration in laser produced plasmas and the related secondary sources of energetic radiation with a particular attention to betatron radiation are presented.

Laser induced plasma channels and related X-γ ray sources

During the propagation in the plasma, a super-intense and ultra-short laser pulse deeply changes its parameters due the onset of non-linear effects. These extreme conditions are suitable for the electron acceleration in high field gradient, opening the way for the realization of compact secondary sources of X-γ rays. In particular the Betatron Radiation in the so called bubble regime and the all-optical Thomson Backscattering are presented as good candidate in this sense.

Diagnosis of bubble evolution in laser-wakefield acceleration via angular distributions of betatron x-rays

We present an indirect method to diagnose the electron beam behaviors and bubble dynamic evolution in a laser-wakefield accelerator. Four kinds of typical bubble dynamic evolution and, hence, electron beam behaviors observed in Particle-In-Cell simulations are identified correspondingly by simultaneous measurement of distinct angular distributions of the betatron radiation and electron beam energy spectra in experiment. The reconstruction of the bubble evolution may shed light on finding an effective way to better generate high-quality electron beams and enhanced betatron X-rays.

Characterization of laser wakefield generated betatron X-ray radiation using grazing incidence mirror reflection

We have developed a new approach to characterize betatron X-ray radiation that is excited by the wiggling of relativistic electrons inside laser wakefield driven cavities. This approach can measure the average critical energy, Ec, of the betatron radiation by using the reflection off a grazing incidence mirror (ROGIM). This technique relies on the reflectivity change of a high-Z-coated mirror with the grazing angle of incidence for the betatron X-rays. The average Ec measured with this approach is in agreement with the one measured with a photon-counting X-ray CCD. This approach suggests that grazing incidence mirrors coupled to X-ray detectors can be used as online monitors of Ec in betatron applications.

Electron injection and emittance control by transverse colliding pulses in a laser-plasma accelerator

A method to inject electron beams with controllable transverse emittances in a laser-plasma accelerators is proposed and analyzed. It uses two colliding laser pulses that propagate transversely to the plasma wave. For colliding pulses with equal frequencies, a beam with very low emittance is generated when the collision is close to the density peak of the plasma wave. Electrons near the axis are accelerated longitudinally by the ponderomotive force of the colliding pulses, accelerated transversely by the beat wave, and subsequently injected into the second bucket of the wake. Ionization is used to increase the transverse injection area and the final trapped charge. Simulations show that the transverse emittance can be less than the 0.1 mm mrad level, which is important for many applications. For colliding laser pulses with different frequencies, the beat wave can produce asymmetric injection, which can enhance betatron radiation generated by the electron beam.

Analysis of x-ray emission and electron dynamics in a capillary-guided laser wakefield accelerator

The dynamics of electron acceleration driven by laser wakefield inside a 30.5 mm long dielectric capillary tube is analyzed using radiation emitted in the x-ray range. 3D particle-in-cell simulations, performed with parameters close to the experimental ones, show that in long plasmas, the accelerated electrons catch up and finally overrun the driving laser owing to a higher velocity of the electrons in the plasma. The electrons are then transversely scattered by the laser pulse, and penetrate the capillary wall where they generate bremsstrahlung radiation, modeled using geant4 simulations. The signature of bremsstrahlung radiation is detected using an x-ray camera, together with the betatron radiation emitted during electron acceleration in the plasma bubble. The reflection of betatron radiation from the inner capillary surface also accounts for a fraction of the observed signal on the x-ray camera. The simulation results are in agreement with the experimental ones and provide a detailed description of the electron and radiation properties, useful for the design of laser wakefield accelerators or radiation sources using long plasma media.

Laser acceleration in novel media

With newly available compact laser technology [1] we are capable of producing 100 PW-class laser pulses with a single-cycle duration on the femtosecond timescale. With this fs intense laser we can produce a coherent X-ray pulse that is also compressed, well into the hard X-ray regime (∼10 keV) and with a power up to as much as 10 Exawatts. We suggest utilizing these coherent X-rays to drive the acceleration of particles. Such X-rays are focusable far beyond the diffraction limit of the original laser wavelength and when injected into a crystal it forms a metallic-density electron plasma ideally suited for laser wakefield acceleration. If the X-ray field is limited by the Schwinger field at the focal size of ∼100 nm, the achievable energy is 1 PeV over 50 m. (If the X-rays are focused further, much higher energies beyond this are possible). These processes are not limited to only electron acceleration, and if ions are pre-accelerated to beyond GeV they are capable of being further accelerated using a LWFA scheme [2] to similar energies as electrons over the same distance-scales. Such high energy proton (and ion) beams can induce copious neutrons, which can also give rise to intense compact muon beams and neutrino beams that may be portable. High-energy gamma rays can also be efficiently emitted with a bril- liance many orders of magnitude above the brightest X-ray sources by this accelerating process, from both the betatron radiation as well as the dominant radiative-damping dynamics. With the exceptional conditions enabled by this technology we envision a whole scope of new physical phenomena, including: the possibility of laser self-focus in the vacuum, neutron manipulation by the beat of such lasers, zeptosecond spectroscopy of nuclei, etc. Further, we now introduce along with the idea of vacuum as a nonlinear medium, the Schwinger Fiber Accelerator. This is a self-organized vacuum fiber acceleration concept, in which the repeated process of self-focusing and defocusing for the X-ray pulse in vacuum forms a modulated fiber that guides the intense X-rays.

Design of Elliptical Reflection Zone Plate for Monochromatization of the Ultrafast Betatron Radiation at Low Energy Band

The elliptical reflection zone plate is a kind of optical element in soft x-ray and x-ray ranges and has focusing and dispersion properties. Compared with a transmission zone plate, the required dispersion orders can be easily separated from zeroth order diffraction. It is fabricated on a bulk substrate and does not have much difficulty in the fabrication process. We design a 1000-zone off-axis elliptical reflection zone plate for the monochromatization of the ultrafast betatron radiation at the low energy band, at the designed wavelength of 2.478nm (500 eV) which is an important spectral part of the betatron radiation, with high spatial resolution, high spectral resolution. Moreover, we simulate the designed reflection zone plate properties. The simulation results show that the spatial resolutions in the spatial direction and the spectral direction are 6.4 μm and 7.3 μm (full width half maximum), respectively, and the spectral resolution reaches up to 496 for the well aligned point source system, which is in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. In addition, we discuss some factors influencing the spectral and spatial resolution, such as the zone number, zone area and the incidence wavelength. The elliptical reflection zone plate also has potential applications in investigating x-ray fluorescence spectra and other fields.

Compact laser accelerators for X-ray phase-contrast imaging

Advances in X-ray imaging techniques have been driven by advances in novel X-ray sources. The latest fourth-generation X-ray sources can boast large photon fluxes at unprecedented brightness. However, the large size of these facilities means that these sources are not available for everyday applications. With advances in laser plasma acceleration, electron beams can now be generated at energies comparable to those used in light sources, but in university-sized laboratories. By making use of the strong transverse focusing of plasma accelerators, bright sources of betatron radiation have been produced. Here, we demonstrate phase-contrast imaging of a biological sample for the first time by radiation generated by GeV electron beams produced by a laser accelerator. The work was performed using a greater than 300 TW laser, which allowed the energy of the synchrotron source to be extended to the 10-100 keV range.

Laser wakefield generated X-ray probe for femtosecond time-resolved measurements of ionization states of warm dense aluminum

We have developed a laser wakefield generated X-ray probe to directly measure the temporal evolution of the ionization states in warm dense aluminum by means of absorption spectroscopy. As a promising alternative to the free electron excited X-ray sources, Betatron X-ray radiation, with femtosecond pulse duration, provides a new technique to diagnose femtosecond to picosecond transitions in the atomic structure. The X-ray probe system consists of an adjustable Kirkpatrick-Baez (KB) microscope for focusing the Betatron emission to a small probe spot on the sample being measured, and a flat Potassium Acid Phthalate Bragg crystal spectrometer to measure the transmitted X-ray spectrum in the region of the aluminum K-edge absorption lines. An X-ray focal spot size of around 50 μm was achieved after reflection from the platinum-coated 10-cm-long KB microscope mirrors. Shot to shot positioning stability of the Betatron radiation was measured resulting in an rms shot to shot variation in spatial pointing on the sample of 16 μm. The entire probe setup had a spectral resolution of ~1.5 eV, a detection bandwidth of ~24 eV, and an overall photon throughput efficiency of the order of 10(-5). Approximately 10 photons were detected by the X-ray CCD per laser shot within the spectrally resolved detection band. Thus, it is expected that hundreds of shots will be required per absorption spectrum to clearly observe the K-shell absorption features expected from the ionization states of the warm dense aluminum.

Compton scattering for spectroscopic detection of ultra-fast, high flux, broad energy range X-rays

Compton side-scattering has been used to simultaneously downshift the energy of keV to MeV energy range photons while attenuating their flux to enable single-shot, spectrally resolved, measurements of high flux X-ray sources to be undertaken. To demonstrate the technique a 1 mm thick pixelated cadmium telluride detector has been used to measure spectra of Compton side-scattered radiation from a Cobalt-60 laboratory source and a high flux, high peak brilliance X-ray source of betatron radiation from a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator.

Modeling classical and quantum radiation from laser-plasma accelerators

The development of models and the ``Virtual Detector for Synchrotron Radiation'' (vdsr) code that accurately describe the production of synchrotron radiation are described. These models and code are valid in the classical and linear (single-scattering) quantum regimes and are capable of describing radiation produced from laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) through a variety of mechanisms including betatron radiation, undulator radiation, and Thomson/Compton scattering. Previous models of classical synchrotron radiation, such as those typically used for undulator radiation, are inadequate in describing the radiation spectra from electrons undergoing small numbers of oscillations. This is due to an improper treatment of a mathematical evaluation at the end points of an integration that leads to an unphysical plateau in the radiation spectrum at high frequencies, the magnitude of which increases as the number of oscillation periods decreases. This is important for betatron radiation from LPAs, in which the betatron strength parameter is large but the number of betatron periods is small. The code vdsr allows the radiation to be calculated in this regime by full integration over each electron trajectory, including end-point effects, and this code is used to calculate betatron radiation for cases of experimental interest. Radiation from Thomson scattering and Compton scattering is also studied with vdsr. For Thomson scattering, radiation reaction is included by using the Sokolov method for the calculation of the electron dynamics. For Compton scattering, quantum recoil effects are considered in vdsr by using Monte Carlo methods. The quantum calculation has been benchmarked with the classical calculation in a classical regime.

Femtosecond x rays from laser-plasma accelerators

Relativistic interaction of short-pulse lasers with underdense plasmas has recently led to the emergence of a novel generation of femtosecond x-ray sources. Based on radiation from electrons accelerated in plasma, these sources have the common properties to be compact and to deliver collimated, incoherent, and femtosecond radiation. In this article, within a unified formalism, the betatron radiation of trapped and accelerated electrons in the so-called bubble regime, the synchrotron radiation of laser-accelerated electrons in usual meter-scale undulators, the nonlinear Thomson scattering from relativistic electrons oscillating in an intense laser field, and the Thomson backscattered radiation of a laser beam by laser-accelerated electrons are reviewed. The underlying physics is presented using ideal models, the relevant parameters are defined, and analytical expressions providing the features of the sources are given. Numerical simulations and a summary of recent experimental results on the different mechanisms are also presented. Each section ends with the foreseen development of each scheme. Finally, one of the most promising applications of laser-plasma accelerators is discussed: the realization of a compact free-electron laser in the x-ray range of the spectrum. In the conclusion, the relevant parameters characterizing each sources are summarized. Considering typical laser-plasma interaction parameters obtained with currently available lasers, examples of the source features are given. The sources are then compared to each other in order to define their field of applications.

Magnetically assisted self-injection and radiation generation for plasma-based acceleration

It is shown through analytical modeling and numerical simulations that external magnetic fields can relax the self-trapping thresholds in plasma-based accelerators. In addition, the transverse location where self-trapping occurs can be selected by adequate choice of the spatial profile of the external magnetic field. We also find that magnetic-field assisted self-injection can lead to the emission of betatron radiation at well-defined frequencies. This controlled injection technique could be explored using state-of-the-art magnetic fields in current/next generation plasma/laser wakefield accelerator experiments.

Low-Emittance Electron Bunches from a Laser-Plasma Accelerator Measured using Single-Shot X-Ray Spectroscopy

X-ray spectroscopy is used to obtain single-shot information on electron beam emittance in a low-energy-spread 0.5 GeV-class laser-plasma accelerator. Measurements of betatron radiation from 2 to 20 keV used a CCD and single-photon counting techniques. By matching x-ray spectra to betatron radiation models, the electron bunch radius inside the plasma is estimated to be ~0.1 μm. Combining this with simultaneous electron spectra, normalized transverse emittance is estimated to be as low as 0.1 mm mrad, consistent with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Correlations of the bunch radius with electron beam parameters are presented.

Electron beam dynamics and self-cooling up to PeV level due to betatron radiation in plasma-based accelerators

In plasma-based accelerators, electrons are accelerated by ultrahigh gradient of $1--100\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GV}/\mathrm{m}$ and undergo the focusing force with the same order as the accelerating force. Heated electrons are injected in a plasma wake and exhibit the betatron oscillation that generates synchrotron radiation. Intense betatron radiation from laser-plasma accelerators is attractive x-ray/gamma-ray sources, while it produces radiation loss and significant effects on energy spread and transverse emittance via the radiation reaction force. In this article, electron beam dynamics on transverse emittance and energy spread with considering radiation reaction effects are studied numerically. It is found that the emittance growth and the energy spread damping initially dominate and balance with radiative damping due to the betatron radiation. Afterward the emittance turns to decrease at a constant rate and leads to the equilibrium at a nanometer radian level with growth due to Coulomb scattering at PeV-level energies. A constant radiation loss rate ${R}_{T}=2/3$ is found without regard to the electron beam and plasma conditions. Self-cooling of electron beams due to betatron radiation may guarantee TeV-range linear colliders and give hints on astrophysical ultrahigh-energy phenomena.

Enhancement of x-rays generated by a guided laser wakefield accelerator inside capillary tubes

Electrons accelerated in the nonlinear regime in a laser wakefield accelerator experience transverse oscillations inside the plasma cavity, giving rise to ultra-short pulsed x-rays, also called the betatron radiation. We show that the fluence of x-ray can be enhanced by more than one order of magnitude when the laser is guided by a 10 mm long capillary tube instead of interacting with a 2 mm gas jet. X-rays with a synchrotron-like spectrum and associated critical energy ∼5 keV, with a peak brightness of ∼1×1021 ph/s/mm2/mrad2/0.1%BW, were achieved by employing 16 TW laser pulses.