Study of a THz IFEL prebuncher for laser-plasma accelerators

For monoenergetic acceleration of electrons, the injected particles need to be bunched with the same periodicity as the accelerating structure. In a laser-driven plasma beatwave accelerator, the accelerating structure (plasma wave) is phase-locked to the CO2 beat-wave used to drive it. Using the same beat-wave to generate high power FIR radiation via difference frequency mixing in GaAs ensures that the radiation has the same phase relationship as the plasma wave before it saturates and detunes from the pump. Therefore, this radiation can be used to prebunch an existing electron beam based on an Inverse Free Electron Laser (IFEL) concept. Here we report the progress on the proposed THz microbunching experiment in the Neptune laboratory. A 50 cm long prebuncher is optimized using simulation codes for minimum FIR power required. The injected 5ps long electron beam is expected to form a series of 45 μm long microbunches containing over 40% of the injected current after 1.6 m drift space following the undulator. Preliminary experimental results on THz generation are also presented.