Performance Study on a Soft X-ray Betatron Radiation Source Realized in the Self-Injection Regime of Laser-Plasma Wakefield Acceleration

Abstract

We present an analysis of the performance of a broadband secondary radiation source based on a high-gradient laser-plasma wakefield electron accelerator. In more detail, we report studies of compact and ultra-short X-ray generation via betatron oscillations in plasma channels. For the specific working point examined in this paper, determined by the needs of other experiments ongoing at the facility, at ∼0.02 Hz operation rate, we have found ≲106 photons emitted per shot (with a fluctuation of 50%) in the soft X-rays, corresponding to a critical energy of ∼0.8 keV (with a fluctuation of 40%). The source will be implemented for experiments in time-domain spectroscopy, e.g., biological specimens, and for other applications oriented to medical physics.

Betatron Radiation and Bremsstrahlung in the Interaction of Intense Laser Pulse with Solid Target

“…Recently, there has been much theoretical and experimental interest in the energy conversion efficiency of the radiation mechanisms [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], as well as their dependence on the laser and target parameters [40][41][42][43]. For example, Pandit et al [40] found that if the laser intensity exceeds ∼ 10 22 W/cm 2 , synchrotron radiation dominates.…”