High-Brilliance Betatron γ -Ray Source Powered by Laser-Accelerated Electrons
Journal article, 2018

Recent progress in laser-driven plasma acceleration now enables the acceleration of electrons to several gigaelectronvolts. Taking advantage of these novel accelerators, ultrashort, compact, and spatially coherent x-ray sources called betatron radiation have been developed and applied to high-resolution imaging. However, the scope of the betatron sources is limited by a low energy efficiency and a photon energy in the 10 s of kiloelectronvolt range, which for example prohibits the use of these sources for probing dense matter. Here, based on three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we propose an original hybrid scheme that combines a low-density laser-driven plasma accelerator with a high-density beam-driven plasma radiator, thereby considerably increasing the photon energy and the radiated energy of the betatron source. The energy efficiency is also greatly improved, with about 1% of the laser energy transferred to the radiation, and the γ-ray photon energy exceeds the megaelectronvolt range when using a 15 J laser pulse. This high-brilliance hybrid betatron source opens the way to a wide range of applications requiring MeV photons, such as the production of medical isotopes with photonuclear reactions, radiography of dense objects in the defense or industrial domains, and imaging in nuclear physics.

Author

Julien Ferri

Chalmers, Physics, Subatomic and Plasma Physics

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)

University Paris-Saclay

S. Corde

University Paris-Saclay

A. Döpp

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)

University Paris-Saclay

A. Lifschitz

University Paris-Saclay

A. Doche

University Paris-Saclay

C. Thaury

University Paris-Saclay

K. Ta Phuoc

University Paris-Saclay

B. Mahieu

University Paris-Saclay

I. A. Andriyash

SOLEIL Synchrotron

Weizmann Institute of Science

V. Malka

University Paris-Saclay

Weizmann Institute of Science

X. Davoine

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)

Physical Review Letters

0031-9007 (ISSN) 1079-7114 (eISSN)

Vol. 120 25 254802

Subject Categories

Accelerator Physics and Instrumentation

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.254802

More information

Latest update

7/3/2018 7