A compact synchrotron radiation source driven by a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator

Schlenvoigt, Hans-Peter; Haupt, K.; Debus, A.; Budde, F.; Jäckel, O.; Pfotenhauer, Sebastian; Schwoerer, H.; Rohwer, Erich G.; Gallacher, J. G.; Brunetti, E.; Shanks, Richard; Wiggins, S. M.; Jaroszynski, D. A.

doi:10.1038/nphys811

Cited by 344 publications

(226 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The first demonstrations of wakefield-driven radiation using external wigglers have also been reported, though still being limited to optical or near-optical wavelengths and modest peak brightness 15,16 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source

Kneip

McGuffey

Martins³

et al. 2010

Nature Phys

420

370

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Each successive generation of X-ray machines has opened up new frontiers in science, such as the first radiographs and the determination of the structure of DNA. State-of-the-art X-ray sources can now produce coherent high-brightness Xrays of greater than kiloelectronvolt energy and promise a new revolution in imaging complex systems on nanometre and femtosecond scales. Despite the demand, only a few dedicated synchrotron facilities exist worldwide, in part because of the size and cost of conventional (accelerator) technology 1 . Here we demonstrate the use of a new generation of laserdriven plasma accelerators 2 , which accelerate high-charge electron beams to high energy in short distances 3-5 , to produce directional, spatially coherent, intrinsically ultrafast beams of hard X-rays. This reduces the size of the synchrotron source from the tens of metres to the centimetre scale, simultaneously accelerating and wiggling the electron beam. The resulting X-ray source is 1,000 times brighter than previously reported plasma wigglers 6,7 and thus has the potential to facilitate a myriad of uses across the whole spectrum of light-source applications.There are a number of proposals to use extreme nonlinear interactions of the latest generation of high-power ultrashort-pulse laser systems to produce beams of high-energy photons with high brightness and short pulse duration. For example, high-order harmonic generation promises trains of coherent pulselets 8 and Compton scattering could extend energies into the γ -regime 9,10 . An alternative proposal has been the use of compact laser-plasma accelerators to drive sources of undulating/wiggling radiation 11 .These accelerators use the plasma wakefield generated by the passage of an intense laser pulse through an underdense plasma 12 . Such wakefields can have intrinsic fields of more than 1,000 times greater than the best achievable by conventional accelerator technology, and thus can accelerate particles to high energies in a fraction of the distance. Recently, it has been demonstrated that at high laser power, the wakefield can be driven to sufficient amplitude to be able to trap large numbers of particles (>100 pC) from the background plasma and accelerate them in a narrow energy spread beam 3-5 , now producing beams of electrons of gigaelectronvoltscale energy of the order of 1 cm (refs 13,14).Such electron sources are of interest to replace the accelerators that drive current synchrotron sources, and typically use multiple periods of alternately poled magnets (undulators or wigglers) to reinforce the synchrotron emission over a length of a few metres. The first demonstrations of wakefield-driven radiation using external wigglers have also been reported, though still being limited to optical or near-optical wavelengths and modest peak brightness 15,16 .However, the particles being accelerated in the plasma accelerator also undergo transverse (betatron) oscillations when subject to the focusing fields of the plasma wave. These oscillations occur at the betatron frequen...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source

Kneip

McGuffey

Martins³

et al. 2010

Nature Phys

420

370

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“…The second example is the external injection scheme where a highquality, relativistic electron bunch is first generated using an RF accelerator and then injected into a PBA [26][27][28][29][30]. The third example concerns the proposed PBA driven light source [31][32][33], where a high-quality electron beam needs to be coupled from the plasma wake to an undulator. The last configuration is for the recently developed collider concepts based on linking together many PBAs [34,35].…”

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confidence: 99%

Physics of Phase Space Matching for Staging Plasma and Traditional Accelerator Components Using Longitudinally Tailored Plasma Profiles

Hua

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. Lett.

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Phase space matching between two plasma-accelerator (PA) stages and between a PA and a traditional accelerator component is a critical issue for emittance preservation of beams accelerated by PAs. The drastic differences of the transverse focusing strengths as the beam propagates between different stages and components may lead to a catastrophic emittance growth in the presence of both finite energy spread and lack of proper matching. We propose using the linear focusing forces from nonlinear wakes in longitudinally tailored plasma density profiles to provide exact phase space matching to properly transport the electron beam through two such stages with negligible emittance growth. Theoretical analysis and particle-in-cell simulations show how these structures may work in four different scenarios. Good agreement between theory and simulation is obtained.

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“…So far, undulator radiation from laser-plasmaaccelerated electrons has been reported only in the visible to infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum 24 . Here, we demonstrate the reproducible generation of tunable, ultrashort undulator radiation in the soft-X-ray range by propagating electrons with energies of ∼210 MeV through a specifically designed undulator with a period of 5 mm.…”

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confidence: 99%

Laser-driven soft-X-ray undulator source

et al. 2009

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Synchrotrons and free-electron lasers are the most powerful sources of X-ray radiation. They constitute invaluable tools for a broad range of research 1 ; however, their dependence on largescale radiofrequency electron accelerators means that only a few of these sources exist worldwide. Laser-driven plasmawave accelerators 2-10 provide markedly increased accelerating fields and hence offer the potential to shrink the size and cost of these X-ray sources to the university-laboratory scale. Here, we demonstrate the generation of soft-X-ray undulator radiation with laser-plasma-accelerated electron beams. The well-collimated beams deliver soft-X-ray pulses with an expected pulse duration of ∼10 fs (inferred from plasma-accelerator physics). Our source draws on a 30-cmlong undulator 11 and a 1.5-cm-long accelerator delivering stable electron beams 10 with energies of ∼210 MeV. The spectrum of the generated undulator radiation typically consists of a main peak centred at a wavelength of ∼18 nm (fundamental), a second peak near ∼9 nm (second harmonic) and a highenergy cutoff at ∼7 nm. Magnetic quadrupole lenses 11 ensure efficient electron-beam transport and demonstrate an enabling technology for reproducible generation of tunable undulator radiation. The source is scalable to shorter wavelengths by increasing the electron energy. Our results open the prospect of tunable, brilliant, ultrashort-pulsed X-ray sources for small-scale laboratories.Resolving the structure and dynamics of matter on the atomic scale requires a probe with ångstrøm resolution in space and femtosecond to attosecond resolution in time. Third-generation synchrotron sources produce X-ray pulses with durations of typically a few tens of picoseconds and can achieve 100 fs by using complex beam-manipulation techniques 12,13 . They have already proven their capability of imaging static structures with atomic (spatial) resolution 1 and upcoming X-ray free-electron lasers hold promise for also extending the temporal resolution into the atomic/sub-atomic range [14][15][16][17][18] . Both of these sources consist of an electron accelerator and an undulator, which is a periodic magnetic structure that forces the electrons to oscillate and emit radiation 19 . Whereas current facilities require a kilometre-scale accelerator, new laser-plasma accelerators offer the potential for a marked reduction in size and cost as well as pulse durations of a few femtoseconds.Femtosecond-laser-driven plasma accelerators have produced quasi-monoenergetic electron beams 2-7 with energies up to 1 GeV (refs 8, 9, 20, 21) from centimetre-scale interaction lengths. The concept is based on an ultra-intense laser pulse, which ionizes atoms of a gas target and excites a plasma wave. This trails the pulse at 1 Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany, 2 Department für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Am Coulombwall 1, 85748 Garching, Germany, 3 Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Bautzner Landstraße 128, 01328 Dresden, Germany, 4 ...

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A compact synchrotron radiation source driven by a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator

Cited by 344 publications

References 25 publications

Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source

Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source

Physics of Phase Space Matching for Staging Plasma and Traditional Accelerator Components Using Longitudinally Tailored Plasma Profiles

Laser-driven soft-X-ray undulator source

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