Corrugated Plasma Waveguide Research Articles

A FRACTAL ACCELERATOR ON THE BASIS OF A CORRUGATED PLASMA WAVEGUIDE WITH SUPERCONDUCTING WALLS

The use of a two-stage mechanism for the acceleration of charged particles is proposed. The principle of acceleration is based on the use of the fractal properties of the wave spectrum of a corrugated plasma waveguide with superconducting walls. The first stage provides for the excitation of a corrugated plasma waveguide by short electron bunches in the direction of motion (the length of the bunch is significantly less than the period of the corrugation). On the second stage the test charged particles accelerates in an infinite number of harmonics of the electric field exited by an electron bunches. Calculations show that with the implementation of such an acceleration mechanism, the average speed of a non-relativistic test particle can increase several times, and its acceleration length can be up to one meter.

High-power tunable laser driven THz generation in corrugated plasma waveguides

The excitation of Terahertz (THz) radiation by the interaction of an ultrashort laser pulse with the modes of a miniature corrugated plasma waveguide is considered. The axially corrugated waveguide supports the electromagnetic modes with appropriate polarization and subluminal phase velocities that can be phase matched to the ponderomotive potential associated with the laser pulse, making significant THz generation possible. This process is studied via full format Particle-in-Cell simulations that, for the first time, model the nonlinear dynamics of the plasma and the self-consistent evolution of the laser pulse in the case where the laser pulse energy is entirely depleted. It is found that the generated THz is characterized by lateral emission from the channel, with a spectrum that may be narrow or broad depending on the laser intensity. A range of realistic laser pulse and plasma parameters is considered with the goal of maximizing the conversion efficiency of optical energy to THz radiation. As an example, a fixed drive pulse (0.55 J) with a spot size of 15 μm and a duration of 15 fs produces a THz radiation of 37.8 mJ of in a 1.5 cm corrugated plasma waveguide with an on axis average density of 1.4 × 1018 cm−3.

Simulation of terahertz generation in corrugated plasma waveguides

We simulate the response of a corrugated plasma channel to an ultrashort laser pulse in two dimensions with the goal of demonstrating the production of terahertz frequency electromagnetic modes. Corrugated channels support electromagnetic modes that have a Floquet-type dispersion relation and thus consist of a sum of spatial harmonics with subluminal phase velocities. This allows the possibility of phase matching between the ponderomotive potential associated with the laser pulse and the electromagnetic modes of the channel. Since the bandwidth of an ultrashort pulse includes terahertz frequencies, significant excitation of terahertz radiation is possible. Here we consider realistic density profiles to obtain predictions of the terahertz power output and mode structure for a channel with periodic boundary conditions. We then estimate pulse depletion effects from our simulation results. The fraction of laser energy converted to terahertz is independent of laser pulse energy in the linear regime, and we find it to be around 1%. Extrapolating to a pulse energy of 0.5 J gives a terahertz power output of 6 mJ with a pulse depletion length of less than 20 cm.

Direct Acceleration of Electrons in a Corrugated Plasma Waveguide

Historically, direct acceleration of charged particles by electromagnetic fields has been limited by diffraction, phase matching, and material damage thresholds. A recently developed plasma micro-optic [B. Layer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 035001 (2007)] removes these limitations and promises to allow high-field acceleration of electrons over many centimeters using relatively small femtosecond lasers. We present simulations that show a laser pulse power of 1.9 TW should allow an acceleration gradient larger than 80 MV/cm. A modest power of only 30 GW would still allow acceleration gradients in excess of 10 MV/cm.

Dispersion Characteristics of Plasma Mode in Corrugated Plasma Waveguide

The dispersion equation of electromagnetic wave is derived for corrugated waveguide filled with plasma immersed in magnetic field under assumption of small corrugation, the dispersion characteristics of low frequency plasma mode are calculated and analyzed, the dense spectrum of plasma mode is demonstrated.

Absolute Instability of Low-Frequency Electromagnetic Waves in a Plasma Waveguide with Periodic Boundaries

The linear dispersion relation of low frequency electromagnetic plasma waves in a corrugated plasma waveguide is analyzed successfully for a particular model in which difficulties for satisfying Floquet theorem rigorously are overcome. The resultant absolute instabilities are investigated numerically in some detail.