The efficiency of the "forced laser wakefield" regime has recently been demonstrated, with the acceleration of electrons up to 200 MeV with a short pulse, 10 Hz laser V. Malka et al., Science 298, 1596 (2002). Numerical simulations presented in this letter provide strong indications that the resulting electron bunches also have very short durations, less than 100 fs. All these features combine to suggest a number of interesting applications for such a source. We discuss its use as a high-energy injector for conventional accelerators, and assess the characteristics of the x-ray pulses that could be obtained via the channelling effect or Thomson scattering with this electron pulse.
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