High charge laser acceleration of electrons to 10 GeV
Recent demonstrations of all-optical multi-GeV laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) have been enabled by University of Maryland's development of low-density, meter scale plasma waveguides generated in greatly extended supersonic gas jets. We present a review of our recent LWFA efforts, including experiments and simulations to benchmark plasma waveguide generation, a new 3-stage model for relativistic pulse propagation in meter-scale waveguides, and recent LWFA experiments using waveguides up to 30 cm long. These experiments demonstrate sub-milliradian divergence electron bunches with integrated charge >1 nC above 1 GeV, and energy spectra including ≲ 10 pC features above 9 GeV with tails extending to slightly beyond 10 GeV, representing a laser to electron conversion efficiency of at least ∼30%.
Authors
- S. Zahedpour
- A. Sloss (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3494-7927)
- Ping Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4131-4578)
- R. Versaci (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6516-0764)
- R. Hollinger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1955-8840)
- B. Miao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5647-4067)
- G. J. Williams (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6495-5696)
- E. Rockafellow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8935-8628)
- J. E. Shrock (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1147-2145)
- Brendan A. Reagan
- S. W. Hancock (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5132-5516)
- Shoujun Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4354-4166)
- M. Le (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4444-7894)
- Gabriele Maria Grittani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4394-854X)
- Jiří Šišma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7704-136X)
- J. J. Rocca
- Howard M. Milchberg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0338-3636)
- D. F. Gordon
- James King
Institutions
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US)
- United States Naval Research Laboratory (US)
- Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines (CZ)
- Czech Technical University in Prague (CZ)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Colorado State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment
- Published
- 2025-04-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2025.170586
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.61
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency