Nanoscale electron bunching in laser-triggered ionization injection in plasma accelerators
Published in Physical Review Letters, 2016
Abstract: Ionization injection is attractive as a controllable injection scheme for generating high quality electron beams using plasma-based wakefield acceleration. Because of the phase-dependent tunneling ionization rate and the trapping dynamics within a nonlinear wake, the discrete injection of electrons within the wake is nonlinearly mapped to a discrete final phase space structure of the beam at the location where the electrons are trapped. This phenomenon is theoretically analyzed and examined by three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations which show that three-dimensional effects limit the wave number of the modulation to between >2k₀ and about 5k₀, where k₀ is the wave number of the injection laser. Such a nanoscale bunched beam can be diagnosed by and used to generate coherent transition radiation and may find use in generating high-power ultraviolet radiation upon passage through a resonant undulator.
Recommended citation: Xinlu Xu, Chi-Hao Pai, Chaojie Zhang, Fei Li, Yang Wan, Yipeng Wu, Jianfei Hua, Wei Lu, Weiming An, Peicheng Yu, Chan Joshi, Warren B. Mori, "Nanoscale electron bunching in laser-triggered ionization injection in plasma accelerators," Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 034801 (2016).
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