A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z    

Ralph, J.E.

Paper Title Page
TPAE043 Production of Terahertz Seed Radiation for FEL/IFEL Microbunchers for Second Generation Plasma Beatwave Experiments at Neptune 2780
 
  • J.E. Ralph, C. Joshi, J.B. Rosenzweig, C. Sung, S. Tochitsky
    UCLA, Los Angeles, California
 
  Funding: This work was supported by the DOE Contract No. DE-FG03-92ER40727.

To achieve phase locked injection of short electron bunches in a plasma beatwave accelerator, the Neptune Laboratory will utilize microbunching in an FEL or IFEL system. These systems require terahertz (THz) seed radiation on the order of 10 kW for the FEL and 10 MW for the IFEL bunchers. We report results of experiments on THz generation using nonlinear frequency mixing of CO2 laser lines in GaAs. A two-wavelength laser beam was split and sent onto a 2.5 cm long GaAs crystal cut for noncollinear phase matching. Low power measurements achieved ~1 W of 340 ?m radiation using 200 ns CO2 pump pulses with wavelengths 10.3?m and 10.6?m. We also demonstrated tunability of difference frequency radiation, producing 240?m by mixing two different CO2 laser lines. By going to shorter laser pulses and higher intensities, we were able to increase the conversion efficiency while decreasing the surface damage threshold. Using 200ps pulses we produced ~2 MW of 340 ?m radiation. Future studies in this area will focus on developing large diameter Quasi-Phase matched structures for production of high power THz radiation.

 
TPAE044 Terahertz IFEL/FEL Microbunching for Plasma Beatwave Accelerators 2812
 
  • C. Sung, C.E. Clayton, C. Joshi, P. Musumeci, C. Pellegrini, J.E. Ralph, S. Reiche, J.B. Rosenzweig, S. Tochitsky
    UCLA, Los Angeles, California
 
  Funding: Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG03-92ER40727.

In order to obtain monoenergetic acceleration of electrons, phase-locked injection using electron microbunches shorter than the accelerating structure is necessary. For a laser-driven plasma beatwave accelerator experiment, we propose to microbunch the electrons by interaction with terahertz (THz) radiation in an undulator via two mechanisms– free electron laser (FEL) and inverse free electron laser (IFEL). Since the high power FIR radiation will be generated via difference frequency mixing in GaAs by the same CO2 beatwave used to drive the plasma wave, electrons could be phase-locked and pre-bunched into a series of microbunches separated with the same periodicity. Here we examine the criteria for undulator design and present simulation results for both IFEL and FEL approaches. Using different CO2 laser lines, electrons can be microbunched with different periodicity 300 – 100 mm suitable for injection into plasma densities in the range 1016 – 1017 cm-3, respectively. The requirement on the THz radiation power and the electron beam qualities are also discussed.

 
TOPA006 High Energy Gain IFEL at UCLA Neptune Laboratory 500
 
  • P. Musumeci, S. Boucher, C.E. Clayton, A. Doyuran, R.J. England, C. Joshi, C. Pellegrini, J.E. Ralph, J.B. Rosenzweig, C. Sung, S. Tochitsky, G. Travish, R.B. Yoder
    UCLA, Los Angeles, California
  • S.V. Tolmachev, A. Varfolomeev, A. Varfolomeev, T.V. Yarovoi
    RRC Kurchatov Institute, Moscow
 
  We report the observation of energy gain in excess of 20 MeV at the Inverse Free Electron Laser Accelerator experiment at the Neptune Laboratory at UCLA. A 14.5 MeV electron beam is injected in an undulator strongly tapered in period and field amplitude. The IFEL driver is a CO2 10.6 mkm laser with power larger than 400 GW. The Rayleigh range of the laser, ~ 1.8 cm, is much shorter than the undulator length so that the interaction is diffraction dominated. A few per cent of the injected particles are trapped in a stable accelerating bucket. Electrons with energies up to 35 MeV are measured by a magnetic spectrometer. Simulations, in good agreement with the experimental data, show that most of the energy gain occurs in the first half of the undulator at a gradient of 70 MeV/m and that the structure in the measured energy spectrum arises because of higher harmonic IFEL interaction in the second half of the undulator.