Electron Trapping from Interactions between Laser-Driven Relativistic Plasma Waves

Coupling between electron plasma waves in laser–plasma interactions*

ALagrangian fluid model ~cold plasma, fixed ions! is developed for analyzing the coupling between electron plasma waves. This model shows that a small wave number electron plasma wave (v2 ,k2) will strongly affect a large wave number electron plasma wave (v1 ,k1), transferring its energy into daughter waves or sidebands at (v11nv2 ,k11nk2) in the lab frame. The accuracy of the model is checked ...

Electron and Photon Production From Relativistic Laser-Plasma Interactions

The interaction of short and intense laser pulses with plasmas is a very efficient source of relativistic electrons with tunable properties. In low density plasmas, we observed bunches of electrons up to 200 MeV, accelerated in the wake field of the laser pulse. Less energetic electrons (tens of MeV) have been obtained, albeit with a higher efficiency, during the interaction with a solid target...

Relativistic laser–plasma interactions

By focusing petawatt peak power laser light to intensities up to 1021 W cm−2, highly relativistic plasmas can now be studied. The force exerted by light pulses with this extreme intensity has been used to accelerate beams of electrons and protons to energies of a million volts in distances of only microns. This acceleration gradient is a thousand times greater than in radio-frequency-based acce...

Resonantly laser-driven plasma waves for electron acceleration.

Microengineering Laser Plasma Interactions at Relativistic Intensities.

We report on the first successful proof-of-principle experiment to manipulate laser-matter interactions on microscales using highly ordered Si microwire arrays. The interaction of a high-contrast short-pulse laser with a flat target via periodic Si microwires yields a substantial enhancement in both the total and cutoff energies of the produced electron beam. The self-generated electric and mag...