Author: Rakhman, A.
Paper Title Page
TUPEA089 Modeling and Experimental Update on Quasi-phase Matched Direct Laser Electron Acceleration In Density-modulated Plasma Waveguides 1325
 
  • M.W. Lin, D.R. Abercrombie, I. Jovanovic, A. Rakhman
    Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
 
  Funding: This work has been supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency through Contract HDTRA1-11-1-0009.
Direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electrons using the axial electric field of a radially polarized, guided intense laser pulse has the potential to lead to compact laser-driven accelerators* for security and medical applications. A density-modulated plasma waveguide could be applied to extend the laser beam propagation distance and to achieve quasi-phase matching (QPM) between laser and electron pulses for efficient DLA**. We conduct numerical simulations to design the appropriate plasma structure of the waveguides and investigate the properties of accelerated electron beams. An all-optical method, based on the igniter-heater scheme for plasma waveguide fabrication, is experimentally implemented to machine the density-modulated plasma waveguides with low-Z gas targets. A novel angle-multiplexed diagnostic technique has been developed to extract the polarization state and temporal characteristics of a radially polarized femtosecond laser pulse using spatial-spectral interferometry***. The goal of our experiments is to characterize the propagation of femtosecond radially polarized pulses in plasma waveguides.
* P. Serafim, et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 28, 1155 (2000).
** M. -W. Lin and I. Jovanovic, Phys. Plasmas 19, 113104 (2012).
***P. Bowlan, et al., Opt. Exp. 14, 11892 (2006)