Ultrashort-pulse relativistic electron gun/accelerator

Laser driven plasma waves have up to now been considered exclusively as second stage accelerators. Conventional finacs are used in this case as the first stage of acceleration to inject MeV electrons into the plasma. This paper shows it to be advantageous to instead use laser wake fields in the first stage for greater simplicity and better emittance. The concept presented makes this possible with all-optical generation and acceleration of electrons. It is tested using two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations.