THOBI01
LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
Present laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) experiments at LBNL produce up to 1 GeV electron beams in cm-scale plasmas using tens of TW laser pulses. Such beams have been successfully coupled to a conventional undulator, producing synchrotron radiation. Presently, beam quality limits FEL applications. In this paper we discuss methods of triggered electron beam injection into a laser-plasma accelerator to improve the beam quality. Laser-triggered injection, ionization injection, and the use of plasma density tailoring will be discussed. Short pulse, PW laser systems are presently under constructed, and future experiments using PW lasers aim at the production of 10 GeV electron beams accelerated over less than 1 m of plasma. We report on progress toward achieving compact 10 GeV electron beams using BELLA (Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator).
