Speaker
Prof.
Peter Hommelhoff
(University of Erlangen and Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics)
Description
Dielectric laser acceleration exploiting the large optical field strength of short laser pulses and the proximity of a dielectric structure can support high acceleration gradients and may therefore lead to much smaller accelerators, with future potential application in table-top free electron lasers. We report a proof-of-concept experiment demonstrating dielectric laser acceleration of non-relativistic 28keV electrons derived from a conventional scanning electron microscope column at a single fused-silica grating. The electrons pass the grating as closely as 50nm and interact with the third spatial harmonic, which is excited by 110fs long 800nm laser pulses with a peak electric field of 2.85GV/m. The observed maximum acceleration gradient of 25MeV/m is already comparable to state-of-the-art radio-frequency structures. This work represents the first demonstration of scalable laser acceleration and of the inverse Smith-Purcell effect in the optical regime. For relativistic electrons and otherwise identical conditions up to 2 orders of magnitude larger acceleration gradients are expected.
Primary author
Prof.
Peter Hommelhoff
(University of Erlangen and Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics)
Co-author
Mr
John Breuer
(Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics)
