The development of meta-optics with high-aspect ratio, ultratall nanopillars has opened up an advanced nanotechnology platform for the shaping of intense structured light. We will highlight the promises and challenges lying ahead for the control of laser-plasma applications.
The AEgIS experiment at CERN investigates the behaviour of antimatter under gravity, requiring precise spatial and temporal control of antiprotons (and other antimatter particles) using electrostatic and magnetic traps. In this contribution, a CST Studio Suite-based modelling workflow developed to simulate and optimize antiproton trapping configurations, including field homogeneity, electrode...
Plasma-based accelerators provide a compact and efficient means of generating ultra-relativistic particles [1], making them strong candidates for next-generation light sources. These X-ray sources are inherently ultrafast, highly-collimated, and energetic, with applications in biology, plasma physics, and material and high energy density science. These sources are compact and affordable but...
Recent advances in laser technology have significantly propelled the development of Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPAs). However, a critical factor influencing the quality and performance of the plasma-target interaction is the spatial structure of the laser pulse, especially its wavefront. To address this, we present, in collaboration with Dynamic Optics, an optimization software capable of...
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) has seen great improvements in recent years, demonstrating the ability to generate high-energy, ultrashort electron beams in compact setups.
However, reproducibility remains a major challenge, with beam properties often affected by shot-to-shot fluctuations [1], caused by fluctuations in the laser system, inconsistencies in the plasma density profile, and...
Laser-Plasma Accelerators (LPAs) produce high-quality electron beams with high peak currents and low emittance, making them ideal for compact novel Free Electron Lasers (FELs). However, the large angular divergence and energy spread of these beams pose challenges for efficient beam transport overall FEL performance. This study explores the use of an Active Plasma Lens (APL) as a capture block...
Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) produce electron bunches that are ideal for driving free-electron lasers (FELs), both in seeded and self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) configurations, making them candidates for achieving compact plasma-based FEL user facilities with their ultra-high accelerating gradients and small footprints. However, the inherent shot-to-shot fluctuations, large...
The performance of Free Electron Lasers (FELs) strongly depends on the stability, synchronization, and control of the electron beam that drives the lasing process. While Low-Level RF (LLRF) systems are a critical component regulating the amplitude, phase, and frequency of the RF accelerating fields within linac structures, they form part of a broader control system required to ensure overall...
Structured light - light whose spatial and temporal profiles may be simultaneously tailored - offers new capabilities for controlling all degrees of freedom of an optical field and therefore its interaction with matter. Achieving such control requires tunable spatiotemporal spectra.
Separately, Thomson scattering is a known process in which the collision of energetic particle bunches and...
Radiation background poses a challenge in the accurate evaluation of radiation environments, such as in neutron spectroscopy, and beam monitoring. In particular, gamma-radiation background complicates the measurement of low-energy particles. Understanding the methodology for discriminating gamma-radiation background can significantly improve the accuracy of radiation measurements in mixed...
As next-generation accelerators target higher brightness and lower emittance, conventional diagnostics may fall short. Optical Synchrotron Radiation (OSR), while coupled with an optimized optical transport system, offers a scalable, high-resolution alternative. We apply a robust simulation framework for using OSR as a non-invasive tool to extract the transverse emittance of relativistic...
Precise and reliable beam delivery is of paramount importance across a wide range of multidisciplinary applications, particularly in the medical field, where accuracy in dose administration directly impacts treatment efficacy and patient safety. In this context, non-invasive and real-time beam monitoring technologies play a crucial role by enabling continuous verification of beam parameters...
High-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) and ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) are crucial techniques in material science, biology, and chemistry. They enable researchers to visualize atomic structures and observe fastchanging processes, such as phase transitions, changes in molecular shapes, and chemical reactions, with high spatial and temporal accuracy. However, current electron...
Plasma-based accelerators achieve accelerating fields of 10-100 GV/m. While plasma wakefields naturally accelerate electrons due to their near-light-speed motion [1,2], heavier particles like muons [3] and pions, with lifetimes from microseconds to nanoseconds, struggle to be trapped due to velocity mismatch with the wake.
We use spatio-temporal spectral shaping [4,5,6] to control the group...
The interaction of relativistic particle beams with plasmas underpins a broad range of physical systems — from the dynamics of AGN jets and Gamma-Ray Bursts to next-generation plasma-based accelerators. In both astrophysical and laboratory scenarios, these beam-driven plasma instabilities play an important role on the interplay of kinetic and electromagnetic energy. Understanding the growth...
