Plasma wakefield acceleration is a method that uses a driving particle beam or an intense laser to excite a wakefield in the plasma and uses the wakefield to accelerate another bunch of particles. In response to the need to simulate the plasma wakefield acceleration, large-scale parallel computing programs such as QuickPIC [1] and QPAD [2] have been developed. These programs use the...
In this work, we investigate the energy transfer from a long proton bunch driver to the plasma in the context of the AWAKE experiment, using particle-in-cell simulations with OSIRIS. As the driver propagates through the plasma, it excites wakefields by displacing plasma electrons, which gain kinetic energy. This energy can dissipate through several mechanisms, including electromagnetic...
Laser WakeField Acceleration (LWFA) is a useful mechanism for generating secondary radiation in a compact accelerator setup. Different types of radiation can be produced by the relativistic electrons accelerated in this process. Betatron X-ray radiation is emitted by the electrons due to their transverse oscillations in the plasma channel, while THz radiation is emitted when the electrons...
The bandwidth of a free-electron laser (FEL) is increased when the mean energy along the electron bunch varies. In this work, we demonstrate how a dielectric wakefield structure can be used to control the FEL bandwidth by manipulating the beamโs energy chirp prior to its injection into undulators. We compare simulations and measurements of the beamโs energy spread distribution and find...
In the context of plasma-based accelerators, one of the main advantages lies in their compactness and lower overall cost compared to conventional machines. Beyond acceleration, plasma can also be used to focus (plasma lens) and bend particle beams within compact structures such as discharge-based plasma capillaries.
Beam bending in such devices requires a tailored capillary geometry and a...
Plasma-wakefield accelerators have the potential to reduce cost and size for future accelerator-based projects. The recently initiated SPARTA project aims to design a multistage plasma-wakefield accelerator to accelerate electron bunches to high energy (~50 GeV), for use in strong-field quantum-electrodynamic experiments. We propose to use several beam-driven plasma stages which will require a...
The Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE) at CERN uses CERN SPS bunches to develop proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration. However, to excite ~GV/m wakefields, the long SPS bunches must undergo self-modulation (SM) in plasma. SM is a beam-plasma instability and the instability can be seeded to ensure wakefield reproducibility. During Run 2a (2021โ2022), AWAKE demonstrated SM seeding using...
The quality of electron beams produced by Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA), is controlled through laser parameters and plasma density distribution during the injection and acceleration phases, and in some cases, a specific device providing beam selection or shaping to achieve the electron beam quality needed the envisaged application.
A major challenge in the generation of LWFA...
Linear accelerators supplying beam-driven plasma-wakefield accelerators (PWFAs) often use chicane bunch compressors to generate the required bunch currents. Higher-harmonic radio-frequency (RF) cavities are typically employed to produce these current profiles, and the parameter range of the RF system might limit the current shaping capabilities. In contrast, arc-like bunch compressors, such as...
The space-charge field of a relativistic bunch is screened in plasma due to the presence of mobile charge carriers. We experimentally investigate such screening by measuring the effect of dielectric wakefields driven by the bunch in an uncoated dielectric capillary where the plasma is confined. We show that the plasma screens the space-charge field when the distance between the bunch and the...
Progress towards high-repetition (โฅ1kHz) GeV-scale electrons from a LWFA source is held back by the lack of laser sources capable of providing joule-level sub-100 fs pulses at high repetition rates. A possible trajectory is to replace Ti:sapphire lasers with Yb:YAG thin-disk lasers. The narrow bandwidth of Yb:YAG only allows direct compression to โผ1 ps, however. Although spectral broadening...
Extended depth of focus optics or axioptics are becoming increasingly important for many areas of high-power laser-matter interactions. Rather than focusing light to a single longitudinal point, like a parabolic mirror, these optics focus light to a line segment along the optical axis, allowing for the generation of extended regions of high laser intensity. Optics for generating such...
The development of scalable plasma sources is essential for future plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) applications. In this work, we present a pulsed-DC Discharge Plasma Source (DPS) developed for the AWAKE experiment at CERN, which requires a highly uniform electron density of $7ร10^{14}$ cm$^{โ3}$ maintained over tens to hundreds of meters. This DPS has already demonstrated to be...
High-repetition-rate operation of plasma-wakefield accelerators is essential for their suitability in the design of colliders and FELs. Energy remaining in the plasma after the wakefield acceleration event can limit the ultimate repetition rate of the plasma accelerator as the plasma takes time to relax to its initial state. This relaxation is limited by two ion-driven effects: their...
A key challenge in Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) is to achieve electron beams having high spectral brightness, particularly with high charge and low energy spread. We address this challenge by tailoring density gradients in a gas cell. This provides a way to tune with a high precision the laser interaction with the plasma and enhance electron beam quality.
During experiments using...
Microbunching instability (MBI) remains a critical challenge for high-brightness electron beams in linear accelerators, especially for free electron lasers (FEL). We present a comprehensive study of the MBI in the context of EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB, the first FEL user facility driven by plasma acceleration, focusing on both the emergence and the mitigation of MBI under various machine...
Laser plasma accelerators (LPAs) can generate GeV-scale electron beams in ultra-compact footprints, making them ideal drivers for various secondary sources. Among these is muon generation, with various groups measuring LPA-driven muons recently. Muons are unstable, heavy elementary particles, that interact mostly by scattering off nuclei as they propagate through matter. This means that they...
Relativistic electrons colliding with an intense laser pulse will produce scattered photons through the non-linear Compton scattering (NLCS) process. Self-guided multi-GeV electrons that are accelerated in a gas jet interact at a small collision angle with the self-reflecting intense laser pulse. We describe recent PW-class experiments using a self-reflecting scheme to generate a bright and...
One core challenge of the SPARTA project [1] is to offer achromatic staging of plasma accelerators to reach high energies. We propose to achieve this through a specific lattice design, made of dipoles in combination with a novel concept: nonlinear active plasma lenses [2]. Originally motivated by an article on the Hall effect in a glow discharge [3], our idea is to shape the plasma lens...
The linac of the European XFEL accelerates high-quality electron bunches up to a maximum of 17.5 GeV, which undergo free-electron lasing in undulators at photon energies of up to 30 keV. A plasma accelerator stage could be used to significantly increase the electron bunch energy of the European XFEL cheaply and over a short distance. Towards this end we have developed models and performed the...
Laser Wakefield Accelerators (LWFA) offer a promising solution for producing high-energy electron beams in compact setups. Beyond obtaining the required energy, the beam quality (emittance, energy spread, intensity) must also be optimized for LWFA to be considered an alternative to conventional accelerators. Achieving precise control of the transverse beam dynamics is one of the key...
Porous foams, composed of solid skeletons and vacuum pores, form intricate networks commonly observed in natural systems. The dynamics and pattern formation of waves and particles within these networks have become prominent topics in the study of complex systems. Given the widespread application of porous foams in high-energy-density physics, this talk will explore their potential as a...
Plasma-Modulated Plasma Accelerator (P-MoPA) can be driven by existing, efficient thin-disk lasers, accelerating electrons to GeV level energies at kHz-repetition-rate. Some aspects of the P-MoPA scheme have already been tested experimentally. Work to demonstrate in the lab the remaining key steps is being undertaken by the kHz Plasma Accelerator Collaboration (kPAC). Assuming that P-MoPA...
In this poster we present our recent progress on experimentally realizing the peeler mechanism to accelerate protons from silicon-based CH coated targets. Known for producing monoenergetic protons, abundant electrons and bright x-rays, the peeler is of general interest in laser-plasma field. The target is oriented longitudinally along the laser propagation direction. The laser pulse interacts...
Laser driven ion acceleration provides a route to achieve high quality ion beams, which could be superior for specific applications. In this talk I will present recent development of a laser driven ion acceleration beam line based on a homemade table-top 200 TW laser system at Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM). Our major motivation is the potential application of such...
We present a study of a radiation signal in laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerators (LPWFA) employing photo cathode injection. While experimentally observed and significant for timing calibration, its underlying physics remains elusive. Using a synthetic optical imaging plugin for PIConGPU we reproduce this signal in simulations for the first time, linking it to plasma structures and cavity...
Electron-bunch-driven plasma-wakefield accelerators promise to revolutionize particle acceleration by providing compact and cost-effective energy boosters for electron linacs which could, for example, significantly enhance the photon energies produced by free-electron lasers. The FLASHForward facility at DESY has made substantial progress, demonstrating that accelerated electron bunches can...
The Linac-Extension Area (LEA) at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) in Argonne National Laboratory is an experimental facility located downstream of the APS injection linac. It accepts full-energy beam (up to 450 MeV currently) from the APS linac and supports accelerator R&D experiments. An upgraded photoinjector in the APS linac provides high-quality compressed beams to enable R&D on advanced...
Solid-state plasma wakefield acceleration has recently garnered attention as a viable alternative for achieving unprecedented ultra-high acceleration gradients on the order of 1 TV/m or beyond. In this context, recent advancements in nanofabrication techniques have opened up the possibility of creating structured plasmas with tailored properties. For instance, the utilization of carbon...
The translation of laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) from research facilities to clinical settings relies on both scalability and control. Bringing industrial, multi-kHz Yb lasers into the LPA landscape is a key step toward this goal, promising compact, tuneable electron sources for therapeutic applications, like FLASH radiotherapy.
Here, we present an integrated effort that combines the...
Very High Energy Electrons (VHEE) are emerging as a cancer treatment commodity. Compared to protons, VHEE is less sensitive to inhomogeneities within the human body. This means they are less damaging to healthy tissue when treating dynamic organs such as the lungs, liver, and kidneys. VHEE have a range of penetration depths depending upon the energy, often ranging from 50 MeV to 250 MeV. Such...
Plasma wakefield acceleration is a mechanism that utilizes intense particle beams to excite large-amplitude plasma wakefield in plasma, thereby accelerating charged particles. Its acceleration gradient exceeds that of the most advanced radio frequency acceleration techniques by several orders of magnitude, reaching GeV/m level. This technology lays the groundwork for constructing ultra-compact...
Laser WakeField Acceleration (LWFA) is a useful mechanism for generating secondary radiation in a compact accelerator setup. Different types of radiation can be produced by the relativistic electrons accelerated in this process. Betatron X-ray radiation is emitted by the electrons due to their transverse oscillations in the plasma channel, while THz radiation is emitted when the electrons...
Direct laser acceleration with radially polarized lasers is an intriguing variant of laser-based particle acceleration that potentially offers GeV/cm-level gradients while avoiding the instabilities and complex beam dynamics associated with plasma-based accelerators. Currently, the performance of this method is primarily limited by the difficulty of generating high-power radially polarized...
In plasma wakefield acceleration, energy is tranferred from a driver to a witness bunch through the wakefields. Energy lost by the driver is stored in wakefields as kinetic energy of the oscillating electrons, and as potential energy of the electric and magnetic field. A witness bunch can be accelerated by the longitudinal electric field. Wakefield energy is eventually dissipated in the...
The EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB facility will be the first plasma-driven free-electron laser user facility and will host two different beamlines: the AQUA beamline, a SASE FEL designed to operate in the water window down to 3-4 nm, and the ARIA beamline, a seeded HGHG FEL operating in the VUV spectral range from 50 to 180 nm.
The beam driving these FELs is accelerated up to 1-1.2 GeV by an X-band...
AWAKE aims to produce electron bunches with parameters suitable for fixed target experiments: 50-200GeV, percent level energy spread, and mm-mrad normalized emittance. The proton-driven plasma wakefield accelerator uses self-modulation of the long, narrow proton bunch to reach accelerating gradient of around 1GeV/m. To reach these parameters, the electron bunch must create its own blowout,...
Ultra-short laser pulses are essential to resolve femtosecond-timescale dynamics in plasma-based particle accelerators. Presented here is a high-intensity hollow-core beam line designed to spectrally broaden an input spectrum by a factor three, with an output pulse energy of ~2 mJ. These pulses can then be compressed to ~10 fs and will be utilized to take crisp shadowgrams of plasma wave...
Recent all-optical multi-GeV laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) demonstrations have been enabled by University of Maryland's development of meter-scale supersonic gas jets and low-density plasma waveguides. This poster presents a review of our recent LWFA efforts, including gas jet development, experiments and simulations to benchmark plasma waveguide generation, a new 3-stage model for...
The large gradients of plasma-wakefield accelerators promise to shorten accelerators and reduce their financial and environmental costs. For such accelerators, a key challenge is the transport of beams with high divergence and energy spread. Achromatic optics is a potential solution that would allow staging of plasma accelerators without beam-quality degradation. For this, a nonlinear plasma...
Electron-positron plasmas are fundamental to understanding some of the most energetic astrophysical phenomena and represent a unique state of matter. While they have been theoretically studied extensively, experimental studies remain limited due to the challenge of generating and confining such plasmas.
Numerous setups have been proposed to maximize pair yield [1]. With the advent of...
Plasma-based accelerators support large field gradients, but reaching high energies requires that these gradients be sustained over long distances. The high energy of currently available proton sources offers the potential to accelerate a witness bunch to the energy frontier, avoiding the need to couple sequential plasma stages.
However, a proton driver presents its own unique challenges. ...
Charged particles moving through carbon nanostructures may excite electromagnetic modes (plasmonic modes) due to the collective excitation of the electron gas in their surfaces. This effect might be a potential candidate to accelerate particles with ultra-high accelerating gradients. The plasmonic excitations can be studied by particle simulations and with analytical models. In this...
A long, narrow bunch propagating in plasma is subject to the self-modulation (SM) instability, a transverse process. In the AWAKE experiment, we study the evolution of SM along the plasma by changing the length of plasma over which the bunch propagates. In particular, we observe the effect of the transverse wakefields on the bunch by measuring the size of the halo of defocused particles at a...
Plasma-wakefield accelerators are capable of sustaining accelerating fields on the GV/m scale, making them well-suited for shrinking the size and cost of future linear colliders. The recently proposed efficiencyโinstability relation sets an upper limit on the achievable power transfer efficiency from the driver to the trailing bunch if the stability of the transverse phase space of the...
Plasma wake field acceleration (PWFA) is a new method for particle acceleration. It is potentially capable of reaching an accelerating gradient 1000 times the gradient of conventional accelerators. QuickPIC is a program for simulating PWFA. It can offer helpful insight on the construction and usage of plasma wake field accelerators, as well as some other plasma-related phenomena.
Considering...
Numerous studies have explored techniques to optimize electron beam properties, such as energy, energy-spread, charge, and divergence in a laser wakefield accelerator. Controlling electron injection and acceleration independently is key to producing high-quality beams in laser wakefield accelerators. We demonstrate such decoupling using one laser beam focusing in a gas medium thanks to a novel...
Laser-wakefield electron acceleration (LWFA) is an important alternative to conventional accelerators, that was proposed by Tajima and Dawson [1]. To achieve higher electron energies, a new concept has been recently proposed based on laser fields with spatio-temporal coupling and focused by axiparabolic mirror. The aim is to have a long focal depth with phase-matched regime of wakefield...
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) offers acceleration gradients much larger than that in conventional accelerators. The Full Energy Beam Exploitation (FEBE), a new beamline attached to the Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications (CLARA) at Daresbury Laboratory, has been designed as a dedicated test facility for users. By providing access to high-power lasers and electron...
In the context of electron sources produced by laser-wakefield acceleration (LWFA), the temporal evolution of generated electron bunches is a key parameter. Detection of electrons' arrival time and longitudinal profile is needed to characterise the source. Among other diagnostic methods, electro-optic sampling enables to measure electron bunch distribution and arrival time non-destructively...
One important application of laser wakefield acceleration is the production of bright x-ray beams generated from the betatron oscillations of electrons in the wake of a laser pulse. The amplitude of the betatron oscillations is directly correlated with key characteristics of the emitted x-ray radiation, such as flux, critical energy, and divergence. We experimentally demonstrate that a shock...
A wakefield experiment at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator (AWA) facility utilizes flat electron beams with highly asymmetric transverse emittances to drive plasma wakefields in the underdense regime. These beams create elliptical blowout structures, producing asymmetric transverse focusing forces. The experiment utilizes a compact 4-cm-long capillary discharge plasma source developed at...
Laser-plasma ion acceleration is a well established field of research, with several mechanisms being exploited to produce high energy, short particle beams.
Scaling laws show that both the laser's vector potential, and the critical density scale favorably with laser wavelength. Hence the long wavelength ($\mathrm{9.2\mu m}$) $\mathrm{CO_{2}}$ laser at the Brookhaven National Laboratories...
For cancer radiotherapy the ability to precisely irradiate a small spot deeply inside the patient while minimizing the radiation exposure to surrounding tissues is desired. This can be accomplished by a round beam sharply converging towards a single spot, requiring a large beam size in both planes at the exit of the focusing system. Achieving this over a short distance using only quadrupole...
The H3$^+$Beams project seeks to solve the many challenges of external injection from an RF-injector into a high-gradient LWFA structure, and to explore the physics of beam quality preservation in injection and staging.
Principal amongst the obstacles of injection from an RF-injector are the few-femtosecond synchronisation and bunch length requirements.
We address these through THz-driven...
Laser-plasma-driven X-ray sources based on betatron oscillations and inverse Compton scattering offer unique properties, including femtosecond duration, milliradian divergence, and high photon flux. These very properties, however, impose limitations on their spectral characterization, particularly for single-shot detection of X-ray energies up to 100 keV. Conventional semiconductor and...
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) has the advantages of high acceleration gradient and compact scale, which is a promising candidate for the next generation of electron-positron colliders. However, high-quality positron acceleration mechanism based on LWFA is still absent. In this poster, we propose a stable, dephasing-resistant laser wakefield positron acceleration scheme to achieve...
Laser-electron accelerators emerge as novel, compact sources of high-quality relativistic electron beams. Their extremely high peak currents make them ideal for applications in fields such as material science, healthcare, and particle physics.
Each experimental application requires unique electron parameters. Additionally, all the input parameters are interconnected, resulting in a highly...
Very High Energy Electron therapy has shown promising results for radiation therapy using shorter and higher energy electron bunches,100-250 MeV, then conventional electron therapy. One of the key challenges for VHEE is the need for a linear, non-perturbative beam monitor for these bunches. One of the authors, J. Bateman has developed the fibre-optic FLASH monitor (FOFM) [1], which images...
The quality of electron beams generated by laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) is constantly improving to the point where it is now possible to operate novel light sources such as free-electron lasers (FELs), as has been achieved at various facilities. However, this method is still limited by the fluctuations of the electron beam properties, which are difficult to control due to the...
We present a theoretical description of the radiative and space-charge intra-bunch interaction of a compact charged bunch undergoing high-field acceleration relevant to LWFA, PWFA conditions. The effects during the process of acceleration are considered specifically, in contrast to previous work that assumes an instantaneous change in energy and examines the post-acceleration interaction with...
Next-generation accelerators, such as those employing plasma or laser wakefield acceleration techniques, demand precise characterization of the beam's properties, making accurate measurement of the five-dimensional (5D) phase space distribution essential. To meet this need, a novel transverse deflecting structure with adjustable polarization, known as the Polarizable X-band Transverse...
The staging of laser-driven plasma accelerators (LPAs) could open up energy frontiers, but achieving in- and out-coupling of laser pulses while preserving beam quality remains a challenge. In this work, we present an all-optical, in-plasma staging scheme that uses refraction in a transverse plasma density gradient to couple the incoming laser into the next LPA stage, eliminating the need for...
Interest in generating higher-order structured light with orbital angular momentum at high intensities (IL โฅ 1018 Wcm-2) has been developing recently due to the ability to exercise control over the spatio-temporal profile and polarization of the resultant light. Potential applications of such light include laser-driven particle acceleration and radiation generation.
When an intense laser...
The driving laser's spectrum evolves during laser-wakefield acceleration due to the density and intensity gradients in the driven plasma wave. These density gradients also determine the accelerating fields experienced by injected electrons, and so the post-acceleration laser spectrum may be correlated with the electron spectrum, potentially allowing for its use as a non-disruptive diagnostic...
Curved plasma waveguides have been proposed as a means to: guide fresh laser pulses into multistage plasma accelerators [1, 2], replace plasma mirror tapes used to eject depleted laser pulses [3], and to bend electron bunches for radiation generation [4-6]. However, all curved channel experiments so far have employed discharge capillaries, which are prone to laser damage especially at high...
In the high-power laser-matter interaction, two main components are the laser pulse and the target. By adjusting one of them, the results can be tailored to a specific application. Nano and micro structured targets are being studied for applications of high intensity laser-matter interaction for more than 30 years and take many forms: gratings, wires, dots, spheres, tubes. With the help of...
The experimental area at the ARCTURUS laser laboratory at Heinrich Heine University Dรผsseldorf (HHU) provides a versatile research and development platform, designed for supporting flexible configurations of advanced laser-driven and hybrid laser- and electron beam-driven plasma accelerator concepts, as well as offering a test-bed for novel diagnostic approaches.
The experimental setup has...
A long, narrow bunch propagating in plasma is subject to the self-modulation (SM) instability, a transverse process. In the AWAKE experiment, we study the evolution of SM along the plasma by changing the length of plasma over which the bunch propagates. In particular, we observe the effect of the transverse wakefields on the bunch by measuring the size of the halo of defocused particles at a...
Progress towards high-repetition (โฅ1kHz) GeV-scale electrons from a LWFA source is held back by the lack of laser sources capable of providing joule-level sub-100 fs pulses at high repetition rates. A possible trajectory is to replace Ti:sapphire lasers with Yb:YAG thin-disk lasers. The narrow bandwidth of Yb:YAG only allows direct compression to โผ1 ps, however. Although spectral broadening...
The dynamics of laser wakefield acceleration processes are strongly coupled to the underlying plasma density profile, which, in turn, directly scales with the targetโs initial gas density distribution. Hence, a precise and reliable characterization of gas targets is an indispensable prerequisite for optimizing the performance of plasma-based accelerators. We present a comparative study of gas...
Simulations play a key role in the design of plasma sources, employed for plasma-based accelerators and other applications, and it is important to have alternative codes, for simulating the dynamics of the plasma. We propose an open source code, PLUTO, which allows to perform 3D, hydrodynamic (HD) and magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of gas-filled plasma discharge capillaries. We...
Laser-Plasma Accelerators (LPAs) provide a compact source of ultra-short, high-dose-rate electron beams through acceleration gradients >100โฏGV/m. Capable of producing Very High Energy Electrons (VHEEs, >50โฏMeV), LPAs represent a promising alternative to conventional accelerators for preclinical radiotherapy, particularly due to their unique temporal structure and potential for FLASH-like...
This work presents a jitter study of the fast intra-pulse feedback loop for klystron-driven RF power stations in SPARC_LAB. To meet the rigorous RF stability demands of next-generation accelerators, such as the EuPRAXIA facility, the LLRF system in SPARC_LAB has undergone a comprehensive upgrade. The requirement for phase jitter in plasma wakefield acceleration and seeded free-electron laser...
Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are a well-established tool to study and predict the outcomes of a Laser Plasma Accelerator experiment, but the results are often hindered by the initialization of highly idealized laser profiles. In this work, we present the development of a Laser Pulse reconstructor For Particle In Cell simulations (LP4PIC), a Python package to retrieve...
Laser-driven plasma accelerators offer a compact, cost-effective alternative to conventional radiofrequency accelerators, capable of generating very high energy and ultra-high dose-rate radiation sources that induce unique cellular responses. We report on the characterisation of laser-driven, very high energy electrons and the response of seven in vitro cell lines to this radiation source. ...
High-intensity laser interactions with solid targets enable the generation of compact and energetic ion beams. When irradiated with laser intensities exceeding 10ยนโธ W/cmยฒ, target materials are rapidly ionized, leading to the formation of relativistic electron populations and strong transient electrostatic fields capable of driving efficient ion acceleration. Target Normal Sheath Acceleration...
In inverse Compton scattering (ICS), tunable and narrowband x-rays are produced by collisions between relativistic electron bunches and intense laser pulses. In conventional Compton source designs, the x-ray photon energy is tuned by varying the electron energy, which has the drawback of reduced brilliance at soft x-ray energies. Additionally, to achieve sufficient x-ray flux, high bunch...
The measurement of transverse profiles is key to determining central parameters of the electron beam. Additionally, transverse profile monitors are used in conjunction with an RF deflecting structure to measure bunch length and slice emittance. A transverse deflecting structure and a dipole can be used to measure the longitudinal phase space. This is of particular interest behind an undulator...
We present recent high-power guiding and laser wakefield acceleration results from the ELBA at ELI Beamlines, utilizing the L3 laser system delivering 13 J, 30 fs pulses at 0.2 Hz. In these experiments, self-waveguiding was employed to generate 20 cm plasma channels in helium above an ELBA-developed supersonic gas jet. The channel forming beam was split from the drive beam post-compression and...
All-optical high-energy X-ray (HEX) beam sources based on Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) are a promising and innovative alternative to conventional sources, enabling the generation of X-ray beams with percent-level bandwidth. These X-rays are generated by colliding a laser pulse with relativistic electron beams from a laser-plasma accelerator. Although a low HEX bandwidth is essential for...
Electron-driven plasma wakefield accelerators offer an advantageous environment for realizing advanced ionization-injection schemes, such as โTrojan Horseโ plasma photocathodes [1]. Plasma photocathodes utilize a synchronized laser pulse to release electrons from a dopant species directly inside the wake structure. In comparison to laser drivers, the substantially lower peak electric field of...
Nuclear fusion represents one of the most promising and at the same time challenging pathways toward a sustainable and reliable energy production. A novel inertial fusion concept proposes the use of nanostructured targets in the form of arrays of thin rods that are irradiated by high-intensity laser pulses. The resulting rapid electron expulsion triggers a Coulomb explosion that accelerates...
Plasma photocathodes utilize a comparatively low-power laser pulse to release and inject electrons directly inside an electron-driven plasma wakefield via selective ionization of a dopant gas or ion species. This injection process is therefore largely decoupled from wake formation and driver evolution dynamics. Also known as โTrojan Horseโ injectors, plasma photocathodes promise a pathway...
Plasma accelerators produce both electron and photon beams with unique characteristics compared to traditional beam sources. As advancements in repetition rate and average power continue, radiation shielding and monitoring become increasingly critical. This poster highlights the distinctive radiation features of plasma accelerators and presents detector developments at Deutsches...
Todayโs laser-plasma accelerators produce electric fields of ~100 GV/m โ over 1000 times those in conventional accelerators โ shrinking their size from large facilities to compact tabletop laboratories. Recent LWFA advances have demonstrated high-quality femtosecond relativistic electron bunches accelerated to GeV energies within a few centimeters of plasma. Research on plasma waveguides to...
We present a study of a radiation signal in laser-driven plasma wakefield accelerators (LPWFA) employing photo cathode injection. While experimentally observed and significant for timing calibration, its underlying physics remains elusive. Using a synthetic optical imaging plugin for PIConGPU we reproduce this signal in simulations for the first time, linking it to plasma structures and cavity...
We present the conceptual design of an alternative injector system based on laser-plasma accelerator technology, aimed at delivering high-quality electron bunches to PETRA IVโthe upcoming 4th-generation synchrotron light source at DESY. The proposed design features a laser-plasma accelerator capable of producing 6โฏGeV electron bunches with state-of-the-art energy spread and stability (~1%),...
Going higher electron beam energy had been one of the major factors improving electron microscope performance. The โholy grailโ of electron microscope โ 1 ร resolution was first demonstrated in 1990s with a 1.2 MeV electron microscope. The introduction of aberration-correction electron optics and cold field-emission electron source led to the demise of MV electron microscope. To meet the...
EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB aims to be the first European research infrastructure to demonstrate the application of a plasma accelerator. The project is currently in the technical design report preparation phase. This facility combines a high-brightness electron beam in the GeV range, produced by an X-band linac, with a powerful 0.5 PW-class laser system, by utilizing a sophisticated โparticle-driven...
