Demonstration of relativistic electron beam focusing by a laser-plasma lens.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 25880791.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms7860 and PMC identifier 4410646.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Laser-plasma technology promises a drastic reduction of the size of high-energy electron accelerators. It could make free-electron lasers available to a broad scientific community and push further the limits of electron accelerators for high-energy physics. Furthermore, the unique femtosecond nature of the source makes it a promising tool for the study of ultrafast phenomena. However, applications are hindered by the lack of suitable lens to transport this kind of high-current electron beams mainly due to their divergence. Here we show that this issue can be solved by using a laser-plasma lens in which the field gradients are five order of magnitude larger than in conventional optics. We demonstrate a reduction of the divergence by nearly a factor of three, which should allow for an efficient coupling of the beam with a conventional beam transport line.