Ultra-bright X ray sources with Laser Plasma Accelerators

Europe/Rome
Aula B. Touschek (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi 40, Frascati)

Aula B. Touschek

Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi 40, Frascati

Via Enrico Fermi 40 00044 Frascati
Description
ABSTRACT

The production of bright compact X-ray beams is a goal pursued since many years by a growing number of groups worldwide in the laser-plasma communities. Such sources offer compactness, reasonable cost and full synchronization with another source (particle or radiation) generated by the laser. It could bring, into a university scale laboratory, a powerful tool to satisfy the need for a wide variety of applications, such as time resolved studies of structural dynamic at the femtosecond resolution, x-ray or gamma-ray radiography with a micrometer resolution, x-ray microscopy, or prospective medical applications. I will show how to produce a stable laser-produced Betatron x-ray beam with a controlled spectrum and divergence. This can be achieved by using the colliding pulse injection scheme where electrons are trapped during the collision of two laser pulses. In a second part, I will show firsts applications of Betatron radiation. In plasma physics, the x-ray emission region is mapped out to provide a unique insight on the dynamics of the laser-plasma interaction. In tomography imaging, phase contrast images are obtained in a simple in-line geometry and compact setup with high spatial resolution. Finally, I will present our more recent results to extend the spectral range of bright laser-based x-ray beams towards gamma-ray energies. We demonstrate an all-optical Compton γ-ray source generated by the Compton scattering of a photon beam off a relativistic electron bunch [1]. Bright high-energy X-ray beam, with photon energies up to hundreds of keV, are produced using a simple, efficient and compact scheme based on the marriage of a laser-plasma accelerator and a plasma mirror. [1] K. Ta Phuoc et al., “All-optical Compton γ-ray source,” Nature Photonics 6, 5 (2012).

Slides
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