Electron acceleration in laser-plasma interaction at moderate intensity and perspectives of application

摘要

Introduction Effective electron acceleration in plasmas driven by ultra-short (tens of femtoseconds) laser pulses has been widely demonstrated in experimental and theoretical works since its first theorization [1, 2]. High-energy electron bunches with high-current and ultra-short duration(picoseconds time scale) can be produced with all-optical technique in millimeter acceleration distances. A promising class of experiments exploits laser systems with peak power of a few up to 10 TW in order to optimize the stability and reliability of a laser-plasma accelerator. This can lead also to a practical usage of such a device for several kinds of applications, ranging from medical to nuclear science fields. The use of laser systems with not extreme peak power makes it possible either to study the acceleration process far from heavily nonlinear phenomena that may negatively affect the reproducibility of the process, and to deal with commercially available instruments accessible by many laboratories. With 10 TW laser pulses focused on gaseous target, an intense gamma-ray source can be produced [3], while electron acceleration with 2 TW systems has been widely demonstrated [4,5].