Cascade acceleration of particles in an inverse-Cherenkov particle accelerator using a single laser source

Abstract

Dielectric laser accelerator (DLA) plays a very important role in the development of on-chip particle accelerators, which has aroused the interest of many researchers. In all previous DLA schemes, each laser pulse can only be used once, which greatly limits the efficiency of the driving laser, as well as the acceleration length and energy gain of particles. Here we propose a DLA scheme based on the inverse cherenkov effect, which uses a pair of laser pulses to accelerate particles in multiple stages. The laser pulses are reflected and refracted multiple times, synchronizing with and accelerating the electron beam in each acceleration stage, just like a traveling wave acceleration in traditional rf accelerators. By this means, the acceleration efficiency can be greatly enhanced, which paves a way of developing high efficiency and high energy-gain particle accelerator on chip.