Abstract The concept of electron acceleration by a laser beam in vacuum is attractive due to its seeming simplicity, but its implementation has been elusive, as it requires efficient electron injection into the beam and a mechanism for counteracting transverse expulsion. Electron injection during laser reflection off a plasma mirror is a promising mechanism, but it is sensitive to the plasma density gradient that is hard to control. We get around this sensitivity by utilizing volumetric injection that takes place when a helical laser beam traverses a low-density target. The electron retention is achieved by choosing the helicity, such that the transverse field profiles are hollow while the longitudinal fields are peaked on central axis. We demonstrate using three-dimensional simulations that a 3 PW helical laser can generate a 50 pC low-divergence electron beam with a maximum energy of 1.5 GeV. The unique features of the beam are short acceleration distance (∼100 μm), compact transverse size, high areal density, and electron bunching (∼100 as bunch duration).
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Active control of laser beam pointing for the Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System: a proof-of-principle study with 16-inch optics
Abstract We present a proof-of-principle study of active beam-pointing control for the Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) using a piezo-actuated 16-inch mirror. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest actively controlled mirror reported in a high-power laser system. A simple proportional feedback control was implemented based on a field-programmable gate array, which reduced the standard deviation of beam-pointing fluctuations by 91% to 0.075 μrad in the horizontal direction and by 78% to 0.25 μrad in the vertical direction. We also demonstrated the elimination of long-term pointing jitter caused by temperature drift using the same apparatus.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2126181
- PAR ID:
- 10704356
- Publisher / Repository:
- Cambridge University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- High Power Laser Science and Engineering
- Volume:
- 13
- ISSN:
- 2095-4719
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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