Betatron x-ray radiation from laser-plasma accelerators driven by femtosecond and picosecond laser systems
Journal article, 2018
A comparative experimental study of betatron x-ray radiation from laser wakefield acceleration in the blowout and self-modulated regimes is presented. Our experiments use picosecond duration laser pulses up to 150 J (self-modulated regime) and 60 fs duration laser pulses up to 10 J (blowout regime), for plasmas with electronic densities on the order of 1019cm-3. In the self-modulated regime, where betatron radiation has been very little studied compared to the blowout regime, electrons accelerated in the wake of the laser pulse are subject to both the longitudinal plasma and transverse laser electrical fields. As a result, their motion within the wake is relatively complex; consequently, the experimental and theoretical properties of the x-ray source based on self-modulation differ from the blowout regime of laser wakefield acceleration. In our experimental configuration, electrons accelerated up to about 250 MeV and betatron x-ray spectra with critical energies of about 10-20 keV and photon fluxes between 108and 1010photons/eV Sr are reported. Our experiments open the prospect of using betatron x-ray radiation for applications, and the source is competitive with current x-ray backlighting methods on multi-kilojoule laser systems.
Author
F. Albert
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
N. Lemos
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
University of California
J. L. Shaw
University of California
University of Rochester
P. M. King
The University of Texas at Austin
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
B. B. Pollock
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
C. Goyon
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
W. Schumaker
Stanford University
A. M. Saunders
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
K. A. Marsh
University of California
A. Pak
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
J. E. Ralph
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Joana Luís Martins
Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics
Instituto Superior Tecnico
L. D. Amorim
University of California
Instituto Superior Tecnico
Stony Brook University
R. W. Falcone
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
S. H. Glenzer
Stanford University
J. D. Moody
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
C. Joshi
University of California
Physics of Plasmas
1070-664X (ISSN) 1089-7674 (eISSN)
Vol. 25 5 056706Subject Categories
Accelerator Physics and Instrumentation
Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
Other Physics Topics
DOI
10.1063/1.5020997