Author: Lin, M.W.
Paper Title Page
MOP097 Modeling of Quasi-Phase Matching for Laser Electron Acceleration 283
 
  • M.W. Lin
    The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
  • I. Jovanovic
    Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
 
  Funding: This work is supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency through contract HDTRA1-10-1-0034.
Sensing of shielded fissile materials at long range is critically dependent on the development of compact particle accelerators. Direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electrons has the potential to meet this requirement. In DLA, the axial component of the electric field of a focused radially polarized laser pulse accelerates particles. The acceleration gradient could be estimated as 77 MeV/mm for 800 nm laser with power of 0.5 TW and 8.5 μm guided mode radius. The implementation of long guided propagation of laser pulses and the phase matching between electrons and laser pulses may limit the DLA in reality. A preformed corrugated plasma waveguide could be applied to extend the laser beam propagation distance and for quasi-phase matching between laser and electron pulses for net acceleration. We perform numerical calculations to estimate the phase matching conditions for a radially polarized laser pulse propagating in a corrugated plasma waveguide. Further, the electric field distribution of a radially polarized laser pulse propagating in this waveguide is also analyzed via particle-in-cell simulations, and will be used to guide future experiments.
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