Optical pumped ultra-short pulse CO_2 lasers as drivers of laser-plasma accelerators and other applications

摘要

Optically pumped CO_2 lasers can operate with high efficiency, high repetition rate and large bandwidths, suitable forproducing ultra-short pulses at terawatts to petawatts, in contrast to conventional discharge-pumped CO_2 lasers, whichare restricted by the requirements of discharge dynamics in high-pressure gas. We show how an optically pumped CO_2laser can be realised and we consider its application in laser-driven acceleration. There is potential to replace conventionaltransversely excited atmospheric CO_2 lasers with diode-pumped solid-state lasers as a pump laser for a high-pressureCO_2 gain medium, making it suitable for amplifying ultra-short pulses. We show that by driving a laser plasmawakefield accelerator with an ultra-short pulse CO_2 laser, a very high charge, high average current, high energy acceleratorcan be constructed. This could have a major impact on the application of these novel accelerators and radiationsources based on them.