Interaction of Ultraintense Radially-Polarized Laser Pulses with Plasma Mirrors

N. Zaïm, D. Gu'enot, L. Chopineau, A. Denoeud, O. Lundh, H. Vincenti, F. Qu'er'e, J. Faure
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引用次数: 8

Abstract

We present experimental results of vacuum laser acceleration (VLA) of electrons using radially polarized laser pulses interacting with a plasma mirror. Tightly focused radially polarized laser pulses have been proposed for electron acceleration because of their strong longitudinal electric field, making them ideal for VLA. However, experimental results have been limited until now because injecting electrons into the laser field has remained a considerable challenge. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that using a plasma mirror as an injector solves this problem and permits to inject electrons at the ideal phase of the laser, resulting in the acceleration of electrons along the laser propagation direction while reducing the electron beam divergence compared to the linear polarization case. We obtain electron bunches with few-MeV energies and a 200 pC charge, thus demonstrating for the first time electron acceleration to relativistic energies using a radially polarized laser. High-harmonic generation from the plasma surface is also measured and provides additional insight into the injection of electrons into the laser field upon its reflection on the plasma mirror. Detailed comparisons between experimental results and full 3D simulations unravel the complex physics of electron injection and acceleration in this new regime: we find that electrons are injected into the radially polarized pulse in the form of two spatially-separated bunches emitted from the p-polarized regions of the focus. Finally, we leverage on the insight brought by this study to propose and validate a more optimal experimental configuration that can lead to extremely peaked electron angular distributions and higher energy beams.
超强辐射偏振激光脉冲与等离子体反射镜的相互作用
本文介绍了利用径向偏振激光脉冲与等离子体反射镜相互作用实现电子真空激光加速的实验结果。紧密聚焦的径向偏振激光脉冲由于其强大的纵向电场而被提出用于电子加速,使其成为VLA的理想选择。然而,到目前为止,实验结果仍然有限,因为将电子注入激光场仍然是一个相当大的挑战。在这里,我们通过实验证明,使用等离子体镜作为注入器解决了这个问题,并允许在激光的理想相位注入电子,导致电子沿着激光传播方向加速,同时与线偏振情况相比,减少了电子束发散。我们获得了低mev能量和200 pC电荷的电子束,从而首次证明了使用径向偏振激光的电子加速到相对论能量。从等离子体表面产生的高谐波也被测量,并提供了额外的洞察电子注入到激光场在等离子体反射镜上的反射。实验结果和完整的三维模拟之间的详细比较揭示了在这种新制度下电子注入和加速的复杂物理:我们发现电子以两个空间分离的束的形式注入径向极化脉冲,从焦点的p极化区域发射。最后,我们利用本研究带来的见解,提出并验证了一个更优化的实验配置,可以导致极高的电子角分布和更高的能量束。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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