Haiyang Lu

Laser wakefield acceleration of electron beams beyond 1 GeV from an ablative capillary discharge waveguide

Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons well beyond 1 GeV and optical guiding of ultraintense laser pulses of peak powers up to 160 TW over a 4-cm long ablative capillary discharge plasma channel were experimentally demonstrated. Electron beams, with energies up to 1.8 GeV, were generated by using the 130 TW, 55 fs driving laser pulses. A comparison of oxygen-containing acrylic resin (C:O:H = 4:2:7) capillary and no oxygen-containing polyethylene (C:O:H = 1:0:2) capillary measurements suggests that the injection of electron into the laser wakefield is assisted by the ionization of oxygen K-shell electrons.

100-GeV large scale laser plasma electron acceleration by a multi-PW laser

We present three possible design options of laser plasma acceleration (LPA) for reaching a 100-GeV level energy by means of a multi-petawatt laser such as the 3.5-kJ, 500-fs PETawatt Aquitane Laser (PETAL) at French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Based on scaling of laser wakefield acceleration in the quasi-linear regime with the normalized vector potential a0 =1 .4(1.6), acceleration to 100 (130) GeV requires a 30-m-long plasma waveguide operated at the plasma density ne ≈ 7 × 10 15 cm −3 with a channel depth Δn/ne = 20%, while a nonlinear laser wakefield accelerator in the bubble regime with a0 2 can reach 100 GeV approximately in a 36/a0-m-long plasma through self-guiding. The third option is a hybrid concept that employs a ponderomotive channel created by a long leading pulse for guiding a short trailing driving laser pulse. The detail parameters for three options are evaluated, optimizing the operating plasma density at which a given energy gain is obtained over the dephasing length and the matched conditions for propagation of relativistic laser pulses in plasma channels, including the self-guiding. For the production of high-quality beams with 1%-level energy spread and a 1π-mm-mradlevel transverse normalized emittance at 100-MeV energy, a simple scheme based on the ionization-induced injection mechanism may be conceived. We investigate electron beam dynamics and effects of synchrotron radiation due to betatron motion by solving the beam dynamics equations on energy and beam radius numerically. For the bubble regime case with a0 = 4, radiative energy loss becomes 10% at the maximum energy of 90 GeV. OCIS codes: 350.4990, 350.5400. doi: 10.3788/COL201311.013501.

Effects of self-focusing on tunnel-ionization-induced injection in a laser wakefield accelerator

We report on the study of the self-focusing effects on the tunnel-ionization-induced injection in a laser wakefield accelerator. Targets composed of a gas mixture of 94% helium and 6% oxygen were used. The energy, energy spread, and charge of the generated electron beams can be adjusted by changing the input laser intensity and the plasma density, but the different aspects of the properties of the electron beams were not independent. It was inferred that the K-shell electrons of oxygen were ionized and injected into the plasma wake for acceleration when the laser intensity was increased beyond the threshold for generating O7+ by tunnel-ionization, due to the relativistic self-focusing in the propagation. Controlling the self-focusing of the laser beam by adjusting the input laser energy to shorten the distance over which the electrons were injected into the wake, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams were observed.

Temporal optimization of neutron generation from the exploding deuterated methane jet of clusters subjected to an intense laser pulse

An experimental investigation on the interaction of an ultraintense femtosecond laser pulse at the intensity of 2 × 10 17 W / cm 2 (60 fs, 120 mJ at 800 nm) with clusters in a supersonic jet of deuterated methane gas has shown the generation of energetic deuterons and nuclear fusion events. The deuteron density and the average size of the clusters in the gas jet, as well as the fusionneutron yields under different backing pressures were measured simultaneously as a function of the time delays of the laser pulses with respect to the puffing of the gas jet. The results demonstrate that during the development of the gas jet expanding through a conical nozzle, the clusters grew up with time, and the average size of the clusters reached the maximum when the molecular density in the jet started to drop. The fusionneutron yields were found to increase with the larger average cluster size and the higher deuteron density, in accordance with the theoretical prediction. Experimental data indicate the existence of a ∼ 1 ms steady region in which the fusionneutron yields have reached the maximum of 2.0 × 10 5 per shot at the backing pressure of 74 bars. Consequently, an efficiency of 1.6 × 10 6 neutrons per joule of incident laser energy was realized.

Control of electron-seeding phase in a cascaded laser wakefield accelerator

Two segments of plasmas with different densities, which are operated as the electron injector and accelerator, respectively, are designed to realize a cascaded laser wakefield accelerator. Particle-in-cell simulations indicate that the further acceleration of the electrons in the second uniform-density plasma relies on the injection and acceleration in the first stage. It is found that electrons trapped in the second wakefield period in the first stage can be seeded into the next stage with an optimized phase for efficient acceleration and reducing in the relative energy spread. And finally a 700 MeV electron beam with a relative rms energy spread about 0.6% and the normalized transverse emittance of 1.4π mm mrad was obtained after a 5.5-mm-long acceleration in a dark-current free cascaded laser wakefield accelerator. Our results demonstrate that, for a given laser energy, choices in laser and plasma parameters strongly affect the output electron beam energy and quality, and that all of these parameters c...

Effects on the proton production from explosions of hydrogen clusters subjected to intense femtosecond laser fields

The dependence of the maximum and average energies of protons, which were produced in the interaction of an intense laser pulse (similar to 1 x 10(16) W cm(-2), 65 fs) with hydrogen clusters in a gas jet backed up to 80 bar at liquid nitrogen temperature (similar to 80 K), on the backing pressure has been studied. The general trend of the proton energy dependence on the square of the average cluster radius, which is determined by a calibrated Rayleigh scattering measurement, is similar to that described by theory under the single size approximation. Calculations are made to fit the experimental results under a simplified model by taking into account both a log-normal cluster size distribution and the laser intensity attenuation in the interaction volume. A very good agreement between the experimental proton energy spectra and the calculations is obtained in the high- energy part of the proton energy distributions, but a discrepancy of the fits is revealed in the low-energy part at higher backing pressures which are associated with denser flows. A possible mechanism which would be responsible for this discrepancy is discussed. Finally, from the fits, a variation of the cluster size distributions was revealed to be dependent on the gas backing pressure as well as on the evolving time of the gas flow of clusters.

Pure Coulomb explosions of highly charged methane clusters investigated by a simple electrostatic model

The pure Coulomb explosions of the methane clusters (CA(4))(n), (light atom A = H or D) have been investigated by a simplified electrostatic model for both a single cluster and an ensemble of clusters with a given cluster size distribution. The dependence of the energy of ions produced from the explosions on cluster size and the charge state of the carbon ions has been analysed. It is found that, unlike the average proton energy which increases with the charge q of the carbon ions, the average deuteron energy tends to saturate as q becomes larger than 4. This implies that when the laser intensity is sufficiently high for the (CD4)(n) to be ionized to a charge state of (C4+D4+)(n), the neutron yield from a table-top laser-driven Coulomb explosion of deuterated methane clusters (CD4)(n) could be increased significantly by increasing the interaction volume rather than by increasing the laser intensity to produce the higher charge state (C6+D4+)(n). The flight-time spectra of the carbon ions and the light ions have also been studied.

Distribution uniformity of laser-accelerated proton beams

Compared with conventional accelerators, laser plasma accelerators can generate high energy ions at a greatly reduced scale, due to their TV/m acceleration gradient. A compact laser plasma accelerator (CLAPA) has been built at the Institute of Heavy Ion Physics at Peking University. It will be used for applied research like biological irradiation, astrophysics simulations, etc. A beamline system with multiple quadrupoles and an analyzing magnet for laser-accelerated ions is proposed here. Since laser-accelerated ion beams have broad energy spectra and large angular divergence, the parameters (beam waist position in the Y direction, beam line layout, drift distance, magnet angles etc.) of the beamline system are carefully designed and optimised to obtain a radially symmetric proton distribution at the irradiation platform. Requirements of energy selection and differences in focusing or defocusing in application systems greatly influence the evolution of proton distributions. With optimal parameters, radially symmetric proton distributions can be achieved and protons with different energy spread within 5% have similar transverse areas at the experiment target.

Efficient generation of fusion neutrons from cryogenically cooled heteronuclear clusters irradiated by intense femtosecond lasers

We present experimental studies on the conversion efficiency of fusion neutrons generated from Coulomb explosion of cryogenically cooled heteronuclear deuterated methane (CD4) clusters irradiated by intense femtosecond laser pulses. A stronger nonlinear relationship between the cluster size and the stagnation temperature for CD4 clusters than that for monoatomic or diatomic clusters is revealed, resulting in marked increases in the average kinetic energy of deuterons and the fusion neutron yield. Finally, a significantly enhanced conversion efficiency of 1.9 ? 107 neutrons/J of incident laser energy is achieved by lowering the stagnation temperature to 217 K under a backing pressure of 80 bars.

Laser-Driven Table-Top X-Ray FEL

Synchrotron radiation sources nowadays benefit a wide range of fundamental sciences from physics and chemistry to material science and life sciences as a result of a dramatic increase in the brilliance of photons emitted by relativistic electrons when bent in the magnetic field of synchrotron accelerators. A trend will tend toward the X-ray free electron laser (FEL) that will produce high-intensity ultrashort coherent X-ray radiations with unprecedented brilliance as kilometer-scale linear accelerator-based FELs are being commissioned to explore new research area that is inaccessible to date, for instance femtosecond dynamic process of chemical reactions, materials and biomolecules at the atomic level (Gerstner, 2011). Such large-scale tool could be built on a table top if highquality electrons with small energy spread and divergence are accelerated up to the GeV range in a centimetre-scale length (Gruner et al., 2007; Nakajima et al., 1996; Nakajima, 2008, 2011). It is prospectively conceived that a compact source producing high-energy highquality electron beams from laser plasma accelerators (LPAs) will provide an essential tool for many applications, such as THz and X-ray synchrotron radiation sources and a unique medical therapy as well as inherent high-energy accelerators for fundamental sciences (Malka et al., 2008).