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Low-divergence femtosecond X-ray pulses from a passive plasma lens

Björklund Svensson, Jonas LU ; Guénot, Diego LU ; Ferri, Julien ; Ekerfelt, Henrik LU ; Gallardo González, Isabel LU orcid ; Persson, Anders LU ; Svendsen, Kristoffer LU ; Veisz, László and Lundh, Olle LU (2021) In Nature Physics 17(5). p.639-645
Abstract

Electron and X-ray beams originating from compact laser-wakefield accelerators have very small source sizes that are typically on the micrometre scale. Therefore, the beam divergences are relatively high, which makes it difficult to preserve their high quality during transport to applications. To improve on this, tremendous efforts have been invested in controlling the divergence of the electron beams, but no mechanism for generating collimated X-ray beams has yet been demonstrated experimentally. Here we propose and realize a scheme where electron bunches undergoing focusing in a dense, passive plasma lens can emit X-ray pulses with divergences approaching the incoherent limit. Compared with conventional betatron emission, the... (More)

Electron and X-ray beams originating from compact laser-wakefield accelerators have very small source sizes that are typically on the micrometre scale. Therefore, the beam divergences are relatively high, which makes it difficult to preserve their high quality during transport to applications. To improve on this, tremendous efforts have been invested in controlling the divergence of the electron beams, but no mechanism for generating collimated X-ray beams has yet been demonstrated experimentally. Here we propose and realize a scheme where electron bunches undergoing focusing in a dense, passive plasma lens can emit X-ray pulses with divergences approaching the incoherent limit. Compared with conventional betatron emission, the divergence of this so-called plasma lens radiation is reduced by more than an order of magnitude in solid angle, while maintaining a similar number of emitted photons per electron. This X-ray source offers the possibility of producing brilliant and collimated few-femtosecond X-ray pulses for ultra-fast science, in particular for studies based on X-ray diffraction and absorption spectroscopy.

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author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Nature Physics
volume
17
issue
5
pages
7 pages
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • scopus:85101442171
ISSN
1745-2473
DOI
10.1038/s41567-020-01158-z
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
3ca7eb05-8726-433f-b3c4-81949049a431
date added to LUP
2021-12-28 13:58:51
date last changed
2022-04-27 07:00:46
@article{3ca7eb05-8726-433f-b3c4-81949049a431,
  abstract     = {{<p>Electron and X-ray beams originating from compact laser-wakefield accelerators have very small source sizes that are typically on the micrometre scale. Therefore, the beam divergences are relatively high, which makes it difficult to preserve their high quality during transport to applications. To improve on this, tremendous efforts have been invested in controlling the divergence of the electron beams, but no mechanism for generating collimated X-ray beams has yet been demonstrated experimentally. Here we propose and realize a scheme where electron bunches undergoing focusing in a dense, passive plasma lens can emit X-ray pulses with divergences approaching the incoherent limit. Compared with conventional betatron emission, the divergence of this so-called plasma lens radiation is reduced by more than an order of magnitude in solid angle, while maintaining a similar number of emitted photons per electron. This X-ray source offers the possibility of producing brilliant and collimated few-femtosecond X-ray pulses for ultra-fast science, in particular for studies based on X-ray diffraction and absorption spectroscopy.</p>}},
  author       = {{Björklund Svensson, Jonas and Guénot, Diego and Ferri, Julien and Ekerfelt, Henrik and Gallardo González, Isabel and Persson, Anders and Svendsen, Kristoffer and Veisz, László and Lundh, Olle}},
  issn         = {{1745-2473}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{5}},
  pages        = {{639--645}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature Physics}},
  title        = {{Low-divergence femtosecond X-ray pulses from a passive plasma lens}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-01158-z}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41567-020-01158-z}},
  volume       = {{17}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}