Increasing energy coupling into plasma waves by tailoring the laser radial focal spot distribution in a laser wakefield accelerator
(2013) In Physics of Plasmas 20(6).- Abstract
- By controlling the focal spot quality with a deformable mirror, we are able to show that increasing the fraction of pulse energy contained within the central part of the focal spot, while keeping the total energy and central spot size constant, significantly increases the amount of energy transferred to the wakefield: Our measurements show that the laser loses significantly more laser energy and undergoes greater redshifting and that more charge is produced in the accelerated beam. Three dimensional particle in cell simulations performed with accurate representations of the measured focal spot intensity distribution confirm that energy in the wings of the focal spot is effectively wasted. Even though self-focusing occurs, energy in the... (More)
- By controlling the focal spot quality with a deformable mirror, we are able to show that increasing the fraction of pulse energy contained within the central part of the focal spot, while keeping the total energy and central spot size constant, significantly increases the amount of energy transferred to the wakefield: Our measurements show that the laser loses significantly more laser energy and undergoes greater redshifting and that more charge is produced in the accelerated beam. Three dimensional particle in cell simulations performed with accurate representations of the measured focal spot intensity distribution confirm that energy in the wings of the focal spot is effectively wasted. Even though self-focusing occurs, energy in the wings of the focal spot distribution is not coupled into the wakefield, emphasising the vital importance of high quality focal spot profiles in experiments. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3979206
- author
- Genoud, Guillaume LU ; Bloom, M. S. ; Vieira, J. ; Burza, Matthias LU ; Najmudin, Z. ; Persson, Anders LU ; Silva, L. O. ; Svensson, Kristoffer LU ; Wahlström, Claes-Göran LU and Mangles, S. P. D.
- organization
- publishing date
- 2013
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Physics of Plasmas
- volume
- 20
- issue
- 6
- article number
- 064501
- publisher
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000321273200060
- scopus:84879950639
- ISSN
- 1070-664X
- DOI
- 10.1063/1.4810795
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 5fed8cbd-2a47-450d-8aba-d43aafccaf82 (old id 3979206)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 09:49:00
- date last changed
- 2022-04-03 23:36:01
@article{5fed8cbd-2a47-450d-8aba-d43aafccaf82, abstract = {{By controlling the focal spot quality with a deformable mirror, we are able to show that increasing the fraction of pulse energy contained within the central part of the focal spot, while keeping the total energy and central spot size constant, significantly increases the amount of energy transferred to the wakefield: Our measurements show that the laser loses significantly more laser energy and undergoes greater redshifting and that more charge is produced in the accelerated beam. Three dimensional particle in cell simulations performed with accurate representations of the measured focal spot intensity distribution confirm that energy in the wings of the focal spot is effectively wasted. Even though self-focusing occurs, energy in the wings of the focal spot distribution is not coupled into the wakefield, emphasising the vital importance of high quality focal spot profiles in experiments. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.}}, author = {{Genoud, Guillaume and Bloom, M. S. and Vieira, J. and Burza, Matthias and Najmudin, Z. and Persson, Anders and Silva, L. O. and Svensson, Kristoffer and Wahlström, Claes-Göran and Mangles, S. P. D.}}, issn = {{1070-664X}}, language = {{eng}}, number = {{6}}, publisher = {{American Institute of Physics (AIP)}}, series = {{Physics of Plasmas}}, title = {{Increasing energy coupling into plasma waves by tailoring the laser radial focal spot distribution in a laser wakefield accelerator}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4810795}}, doi = {{10.1063/1.4810795}}, volume = {{20}}, year = {{2013}}, }