Narrow Energy Spread Research Articles

Spectral Modification of Shock Accelerated Ions Using a Hydrodynamically Shaped Gas Target.

We report on reproducible shock acceleration from irradiation of a λ=10 μm CO_{2} laser on optically shaped H_{2} and He gas targets. A low energy laser prepulse (I≲10^{14} W cm^{-2}) is used to drive a blast wave inside the gas target, creating a steepened, variable density gradient. This is followed, after 25 ns, by a high intensity laser pulse (I>10^{16} W cm^{-2}) that produces an electrostatic collisionless shock. Upstream ions are accelerated for a narrow range of prepulse energies. For long density gradients (≳40 μm), broadband beams of He^{+} and H^{+} are routinely produced, while for shorter gradients (≲20 μm), quasimonoenergetic acceleration of protons is observed. These measurements indicate that the properties of the accelerating shock and the resultant ion energy distribution, in particular the production of narrow energy spread beams, is highly dependent on the plasma density profile. These findings are corroborated by 2D particle-in-cell simulations.

Multi-gigaelectronvolt acceleration of positrons in a self-loaded plasma wakefield.

Electrical breakdown sets a limit on the kinetic energy that particles in a conventional radio-frequency accelerator can reach. New accelerator concepts must be developed to achieve higher energies and to make future particle colliders more compact and affordable. The plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) embodies one such concept, in which the electric field of a plasma wake excited by a bunch of charged particles (such as electrons) is used to accelerate a trailing bunch of particles. To apply plasma acceleration to electron-positron colliders, it is imperative that both the electrons and their antimatter counterpart, the positrons, are efficiently accelerated at high fields using plasmas. Although substantial progress has recently been reported on high-field, high-efficiency acceleration of electrons in a PWFA powered by an electron bunch, such an electron-driven wake is unsuitable for the acceleration and focusing of a positron bunch. Here we demonstrate a new regime of PWFAs where particles in the front of a single positron bunch transfer their energy to a substantial number of those in the rear of the same bunch by exciting a wakefield in the plasma. In the process, the accelerating field is altered--'self-loaded'--so that about a billion positrons gain five gigaelectronvolts of energy with a narrow energy spread over a distance of just 1.3 metres. They extract about 30 per cent of the wake's energy and form a spectrally distinct bunch with a root-mean-square energy spread as low as 1.8 per cent. This ability to transfer energy efficiently from the front to the rear within a single positron bunch makes the PWFA scheme very attractive as an energy booster to an electron-positron collider.

Monoenergetic positronium emission from metal-organic framework crystals.

Recently it has been discovered that positronium (Ps), after forming in metal-organic framework (MOF) crystals, is emitted into vacuum with a high efficiency and low energy that can only be explained by its propagating as delocalized Bloch states. We show that the Ps atoms are emitted from MOFs in a series of narrow energy peaks consistent with Ps at Bloch-state energy minima being emitted adiabatically into the vacuum. This implies that the Ps emission energy spectra can be directly compared with calculations to obtain detailed information about the Ps band structure in the MOF crystal. The narrow energy width of the lowest energy Ps peak from one MOF sample (2-Methylimidazole zinc salt ZIF-8) suggests it originates from a polaronic Ps surface state. Other peaks can be assigned to Ps with an effective mass of about twice that of bare Ps. Given the immense catalog of available MOF crystals, it should be possible to tune the Ps properties to make vastly improved sources with high production efficiency and a narrow energy spread, for use in fundamental physics experiments.

Enhanced single-stage laser-driven electron acceleration by self-controlled ionization injection.

We report on overall enhancement of a single-stage laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) using the ionization injection in a mixture of 0.3% nitrogen gas in 99.7% helium gas. Upon the interaction of 30-TW, 30-fs laser pulses with a gas jet of the above gas mixture, >300 MeV electron beams were generated at a helium plasma densities of 3.3-8.5 × 10(18) cm(-3). Compared with the uncontrolled electron self-injection in pure helium gas jet, the ionization injection process due to the presence of ultra-low nitrogen concentrations appears to be self-controlled; it has led to the generation of electron beams with higher energies, higher charge, lower density threshold for trapping, and a narrower energy spread without dark current (low energy electrons) or multiple bunches. It is foreseen that further optimization of such a scheme is expected to bring the electron beam energy-spread down to 1%, making them suitable for driving ultra-compact free-electron lasers.

Manipulation of laser-generated energetic proton spectra in near critical density plasma

We present simulations that demonstrate the production of quasi-monoenergetic proton bunches from the interaction of a CO2 laser pulse train with a near-critical density hydrogen plasma. The multi-pulse structure of the laser leads to a steepening of the plasma density gradient, which the simulations show is necessary for the formation of narrow-energy spread proton bunches. Laser interactions with a long, front surface, scale-length (≫ c/ωp) plasma, with linear density gradient, were observed to generate proton beams with a higher maximum energy, but a much broader spectrum compared to step-like density profiles. In the step-like cases, a peak in the proton energy spectra was formed and seen to scale linearly with the ratio of laser intensity to plasma density.

Low energy spread electron beams from ionization injection in a weakly relativistic laser wakefield accelerator

We show via two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that low energy spread, relativistic electron beams (>120 MeV, <15%) can be produced in the weakly non-linear regime of a plasma wakefield, driven by a moderate power laser pulse (initial a0 < 1). Higher ionization states of a high-Z trace species, mixed in a background H plasma, provide the source of injected electrons. Injection occurs even though the laser intensity is initially well below the trapping threshold, as it is found that the laser pulse evolves until it fulfils the trapping requirements through self-compression. By careful control of intensity and density, the amount of evolution and hence of trapping can be controlled. Acceleration is terminated by depletion due to the extended evolution time, leading to narrow energy spread features even for long interaction lengths. Particle tracking shows that electrons ‘born’ at the periphery of the laser pulse are more likely to follow smoother trajectories inside the wakefield and subsequently to be trapped and accelerated.

SU‐F‐19A‐06: Experimental Investigation of the Energy Dependence of TLD Sensitivity in Low‐Energy Photon Beams

Purpose:To measure the energy dependence of TLD sensitivity in lowenergy photon beams with equivalent mono‐energetic energy matching those of 103Pd, 125I and 131Cs brachytherapy sources.Methods:A Pantek DXT 300 x‐ray unit (Precision X‐ray, Branford, CT), with stable digital voltage control down to 20 kV, was used to establish three lowenergy photon beams with narrow energy spread and equivalent monoenergetic energies matching those of 103Pd, 125I and 131Cs brachytherapy sources. The low‐energy x‐ray beams and a reference 6 MV photon beam were calibrated according to the AAPM TG‐61 and TG‐51 protocols, respectively, using a parallel‐plate low‐energy chamber and a Farmer cylindrical chamber with NIST traceable calibration factors. The dose response of model TLD‐100 micro‐cubes (1×1×1 mm3) in each beam was measured for five different batches of TLDs (each contained approximately 100 TLDs) that have different histories of irradiation and usage. Relative absorbed dose sensitivity was determined as the quotient of the slope of dose response for a beam‐of‐interest to that of the reference beam.Results:Equivalent mono‐energetic photon energies of the low‐energy beams established for 103Pd, 125I and 131Cs sources were 20.5, 27.5, and 30.1 keV, respectively. Each beam exhibited narrow spectral spread with energyhomogeneity index close to 90%. The relative absorbed‐dose sensitivity was found to vary between different batches of TLD with maximum differences of up to 8%. The mean and standard deviation determined from the five TLD batches was 1.453 ± 0.026, 1.541 ± 0.035 and 1.529 ± 0.051 for the simulated 103P, 125I and 131Cs beams, respectively.Conclusion:Our measured relative absorbed‐dose sensitivities are greater than the historically measured value of 1.41. We find that the relative absorbed‐dose sensitivity of TLD in the 103P beam is approximately 5% lower than that of 125I and 131Cs beams. Comparison of our results with other studies will be presented.

Design and demonstration of a quasi-monoenergetic neutron source

The design of a neutron source capable of producing 24 and 70keV neutron beams with narrow energy spread is presented. The source exploits near-threshold kinematics of the 7Li (p,n)7Be reaction while taking advantage of the interference ‘notches’ found in the scattering cross-sections of iron. The design was implemented and characterized at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Alternative filters such as vanadium and manganese are also explored and the possibility of studying the response of different materials to low-energy nuclear recoils using the resultant neutron beams is discussed.

Generation of a quasi-monoenergetic high energy proton beam from a vacuum-sandwiched double layer target irradiated by an ultraintense laser pulse

An acceleration mechanism to generate a high energy proton beam with a narrow energy spread in the laser-induced plasma acceleration of a proton beam is proposed; this mechanism employs two thin foils separated by a narrow vacuum gap. Instead of a thin sheath field at the plasma surfaces, it utilizes an electrostatic field formed in the bulk of the plasma. From a one-dimensional fluid analysis, it has been found that with an appropriate target thickness, protons on the front surface of the second layer can be fed into the plasma, in which the protons are accelerated by an electrostatic field built into the bulk of the plasma. This leads to a proton beam with higher energy and a narrower energy spread than those accelerated at the rear surface of the second layer. The acceleration mechanism is also verified by a two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. With a 27-fs long and 2×1019 W/cm2 intense laser pulse, a proton beam with an 18-MeV peak energy and a 35% energy spread is generated. The peak energy is higher than that from the rear surface of the second layer by a factor of 3.

Self-truncated ionization injection and consequent monoenergetic electron bunches in laser wakefield acceleration

The ionization-induced injection in laser wakefield acceleration has been recently demonstrated to be a promising injection scheme. However, the energy spread controlling in this mechanism remains a challenge because continuous injection in a mixed gas target is usually inevitable. Here, we propose that by use of certain initially unmatched laser pulses, the electron injection can be constrained to the very front region of the mixed gas target, typically in a length of a few hundreds micrometers determined by the laser self-focusing and the wake deformation. As a result, the produced electron beam has narrow energy spread and meanwhile contains tens of pC in charge. Both multidimensional simulations and theoretical analysis illustrate the effectiveness of this scheme.

Resolution enhancement at a large convergence angle by a delta corrector with a CFEG in a low-accelerating-voltage STEM

Resolution reduction by a diffraction limit becomes severe with an increase in the wavelength of an electron at a relatively low accelerating voltage. For maintaining atomic resolution at a low accelerating voltage, a larger convergence angle with aberration correction is required. The developed aberration corrector, which compensates for higher-order aberration, can expand the uniform phase angle. Sub-angstrom imaging of a Ge [112] specimen with a narrow energy spread obtained by a cold field emission gun at 60kV was performed using the aberration corrector. We achieved a resolution of 82pm for a Ge–Ge dumbbell structure image by high angle annular dark-field imaging.

Electron Acceleration During the Mode Transition from Laser Wakefield to Plasma Wakefield Acceleration with a Dense-Plasma Wall

The wake bubble expansion and contraction by adding a dense-plasma wall in the background plasma during the mode transition from laser wakefield to plasma wakefield acceleration is investigated by particle-in-cell simulations. The electrons are injected continuously into the cavity until the lateral bubble size equals the inner diameter of the wall. The injected electron bunch from the laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) scheme is quasi phase-stably accelerated forward because of the longitudinal contraction of the bubble. After the laser pulse is depleted completely, the electron bunch generated from the LWFA scheme drives a plasma wakefield. The electrons remaining in the channel are trapped and accelerated by the plasma wakefield. Ultimately, two energetic electron bunches with a narrow energy spread and low emittance are obtained.

Water proton configurations in structures I, II, and H clathrate hydrate unit cells

Position and orientation of water protons need to be specified when the molecular simulation studies are performed for clathrate hydrates. Positions of oxygen atoms in water are experimentally determined by X-ray diffraction analysis of clathrate hydrate structures, but positions of water hydrogen atoms in the lattice are disordered. This study reports a determination of the water proton coordinates in unit cell of structure I (sI), II (sII), and H (sH) clathrate hydrates that satisfy the ice rules, have the lowest potential energy configuration for the protons, and give a net zero dipole moment. Possible proton coordinates in the unit cell were chosen by analyzing the symmetry of protons on the hexagonal or pentagonal faces in the hydrate cages and generating all possible proton distributions which satisfy the ice rules. We found that in the sI and sII unit cells, proton distributions with small net dipole moments have fairly narrow potential energy spreads of about 1 kJ∕mol. The total Coulomb potential on a test unit charge placed in the cage center for the minimum energy∕minimum dipole unit cell configurations was calculated. In the sI small cages, the Coulomb potential energy spread in each class of cage is less than 0.1 kJ∕mol, while the potential energy spread increases to values up to 6 kJ∕mol in sH and 15 kJ∕mol in the sII cages. The guest environments inside the cages can therefore be substantially different in the sII case. Cartesian coordinates for oxygen and hydrogen atoms in the sI, sII, and sH unit cells are reported for reference.

Energetic protons from an ultraintense laser interacting with a symmetric parabolic concave target

A scheme of a symmetric parabolic concave target irradiated by an ultraintense laser for efficient proton acceleration is proposed and involved problem is studied by using two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Results indicate that on one hand, the laser field is focused by the front parabolic concave surface of target and, on the other hand, more energetic hot electrons will traverse to the rear surface of target due to concave shape. The space-charge-separation field, induced by those hot electrons escaping form parabolic concave rear surface of target, can accelerate protons to relatively high energy with narrow energy spread. The dependence of the efficiency of proton acceleration on the target parameters is examined, and the optimal target parameters are obtained. Particle-in-cell simulations show that the proton peak energy and energy spread are greatly enhanced when the target parameters are chosen optimal, for example, a proton bunch with the maximum energy ∼27.5 MeV and energy sprea...

High-charge energetic electron bunch generated by intersecting laser pulses

The interaction of two energetic electron bunches generated in the wakefields of two intense intersecting laser pulses in rarefied plasmas is investigated using particle-in-cell simulations. It is found that, with suitable intersection angle between the two laser pulses, the initially independent wakefield accelerated electron bunches can merged into a single one with high charge, energy, and narrow energy spread. The dynamics of the laser-pulse intersection and wake-bubble merging process is also investigated, and the crucial roles of the intersection angle are pointed out and analyzed.

Semiconducted symphony: ultrafast field emitter array

Semiconducted symphony: ultrafast field emitter array

Energy-broadened proton beam for production of quasi-stellar neutrons from the 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction

Production of quasi-stellar neutrons by the 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction has been used for measuring s-process cross sections and efforts to upgrade the proton beam intensity with RF linear accelerators are presently ongoing. We investigated the effect of an energy-broadened proton beam, as is expected for a RF linear accelerator, on the produced 25-keV quasi-Maxwellian neutron spectrum and compared it to that of a Van de Graaff accelerator with well-defined proton energy. Neutron spectrum measurements from 0° to 80° were carried out with a pulsed proton beam at the IRMM Van de Graaff accelerator using time-of-flight techniques, both with a narrow energy spread (σ≈1.5 keV) proton beam and with an energy-broadened beam (σ≈20 keV) obtained by straggling through a Au-foil degrader. In the latter case, the neutron spectrum is closer to the Maxwellian flux distribution in the high neutron energy region.

Electron bunching from a dc-biased, single-surface multipactor with realistically broad energy spectrum and emission angle of secondary electrons

We studied the influences of wide energy spectrum and emission angle of secondary electrons on electron bunching from a dc-biased single surface multipactor. In our previous study of the same system, an ideally narrow energy spread of secondary electrons without emission angle was used in the analysis of the electron trajectory [M. S. Hur, J.-I. Kim, G.-J. Kim, and S.-G. Jeon, Phys. Plasmas 18, 033103 (2011) and S.-G. Jeon, J.-I. Kim, S.-T. Han, S.-S. Jung, and J. U. Kim, Phys. Plasmas 16, 073101 (2009)]. In this paper, we investigated the cases with realistic energy spectrum, which is featured by a wide energy spread and significant emission angle. To theoretically approach the matter of emission angle, we employed a concept of effective longitudinal velocity distribution. The theoretical results are verified by particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. We also studied the electron bunching from a copper by PIC simulations, where we observed stable electron bunches with bunch width of approximately 80 μm.

Collisionless shocks in laser-produced plasma generate monoenergetic high-energy proton beams

Laser-driven proton accelerators could enable more effective cancer treatment, but to fulfil this function proton beams with a higher energy and narrower energy spread will need to be produced. Discovery of a laser–plasma acceleration mechanism that generates 20 MeV proton beams with a 1% spread is a promising step.

Observation of impurity free monoenergetic proton beams from the interaction of a CO2 laser with a gaseous target

A monoenergetic proton beam is observed from the interaction of a short-pulse infrared (λ = 10.6 μm) laser at intensity I = 6 × 1015 W cm−2 with a gas jet target. The proton beam is found to have narrow energy spread (∼ 4% ), high spectral brightness (∼ 1012 protons/MeV/sr), low normalized emittance (εn ≈ 8 nm rad), and high contrast (&amp;gt; 200 × over noise). The narrow energy spread and low levels of impurity makes this method an interesting route for high-repetition rate high quality proton beam production.