R Zgadzaj, J Welch, Y Cao, L D Amorim, A Cheng, A Gaikwad, P Iapozzutto, P Kumar, V N Litvinenko, I Petrushina, R Samulyak, N Vafaei-Najafabadi, C Joshi, C Zhang, M Babzien, M Fedurin, R Kupfer, K Kusche, M A Palmer, I V Pogorelsky, M N Polyanskiy, C Swinson, M C Downer
Laser-driven plasma accelerators provide tabletop sources of relativistic electron bunches and femtosecond x-ray pulses, but usually require petawatt-class solid-state-laser pulses of wavelength λL ~ 1 μm. Longer-λL lasers can potentially accelerate higher-quality bunches, since they require less power to drive larger wakes in less dense plasma. Here, we report on a self-injecting plasma accelerator driven by a long-wave-infrared laser: a chirped-pulse-amplified CO2 laser (λL ≈ 10 μm)...
May 13, 2024: Nature Communications