High-quality electron beams from a helical inverse free-electron laser accelerator

Feasibility of a Plasma-Filled Inverse Free Electron Laser Accelerator

A high power millimeter (mm) wave, in the presence of a magnetic wiggler, produces a large longitudinal ponderomotive force that can accelerate electrons. When a plasma of density n ~ ncr, where ncr is critical density, is introduced in the interaction region, the ponderomotive force resonantly drives a plasma wave that accelerates electrons to higher energies. However, propagation of the mm wa...

A Helical Undulator Wave-guide Inverse Free- Electron Laser

With recent success in high gradient, high-energy gain IFEL experiments at the UCLA Neptune Laboratory, future experiments are now being contemplated. The Neptune IFEL was designed to use a tightly focused, highly diffracting, near-TW peak power 10 micron laser. This choice of laser focusing, driven by power-handling limitations of the optics near the interaction region, led to design and use o...

Ultralow emittance electron beams from a laser-wakefield accelerator

Demonstration of cascaded optical inverse free-electron laser accelerator.

We report on a proof-of-principle demonstration of a two-stage cascaded optical inverse free-electron laser (IFEL) accelerator in which an electron beam is accelerated by a strong laser pulse after being packed into optical microbunches by a weaker initial laser pulse. We show experimentally that injection of precisely prepared optical microbunches into an IFEL allows net acceleration or decele...

The Production of High Quality Electron Beams in the Alpha-x Laser Wakefield Accelerator

The ALPHA-X laser wakefield accelerator beam line comprises a high power (900 mJ, 35 fs) Ti:sapphire laser pulse, a gas jet (length 2 mm, plasma density ~ 10 cm) accelerating structure and a suite of single-shot electron beam diagnostics. Monoenergetic electron beams with central energy up to 220 MeV are generated in the accelerator. By operating close to the threshold for injection with low be...