Speaker
Description
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) can produce high-energy electron beams over a short acceleration distance. In collaboration with the Kansai Institute for Photon Science (QST-KPSI), we have investigated the control of electron injection and acceleration through plasma density shaping and laser focusing.
A plasma density down-ramp was introduced near the laser entrance to trigger and control electron injection. We varied the laser beam diameter and the plasma density to examine their effects on electron injection and subsequent acceleration. The electron energy spectrum strongly depended on these experimental parameters, and we successfully generated quasi-monoenergetic electron beams with energies up to 700 MeV. These results suggest that the injection process and energy gain can be controlled by appropriately combining the plasma density profile with the laser focusing conditions.
In this presentation, we will report the experimental results obtained at QST and discuss the injection and acceleration dynamics with the aid of particle-in-cell simulations.