Abstract
Particles at relativistic energies form the basis of acceleration science. The emergence of terahertz-driven acceleration promises vastly smaller and cost-efficient accelerators; however, the field strength inside the acceleration structure has hitherto prevented the energy gain from reaching the megaelectronvolt range. Here we demonstrate an electron energy gain of up to 1.1 MeV and an effective acceleration gradient of up to 210 MV m−1 driven by terahertz surface waves, using their strong confinement to the waveguide and the fundamental transverse magnetic mode that is favourable for acceleration. The discrepancy in the velocity between the terahertz surface waves and electrons enables potential phase-space control, including temporal compression and spatial focusing. We expect these proof-of-principle results to enable the development of a tunable and highly efficient electron accelerator driven by terahertz surface waves for application in compact microscopy, radiation sources and cancer therapies.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.
References
Ishikawa, T. et al. A compact X-ray free-electron laser emitting in the sub-ångström region. Nat. Photonics 6, 540–544 (2012).
Ishikawa, T. et al. Direct observation of collective modes coupled to molecular orbital-driven charge transfer. Science 350, 1501–1505 (2015).
Yang, J. et al. Imaging CF3I conical intersection and photodissociation dynamics with ultrafast electron diffraction. Science 361, 64–67 (2018).
Amaldi, U. Cancer therapy with particle accelerators. Nucl. Phys. A 654, 375C–399C (1999).
Durante, M. & Loeffler, J. S. Charged particles in radiation oncology. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 7, 37–43 (2010).
Strickland, D. & Mourou, G. Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses. Opt. Commun. 56, 219–221 (1985).
Zhang, Z. X. et al. The 1 PW/0.1 Hz laser beamline in SULF facility. High Power Laser Sci. Eng. 8, e4 (2020).
Wu, F. X. et al. Performance improvement of a 200 TW/1 Hz Ti:sapphire laser for laser wakefield electron accelerator. Opt. Laser Technol. 131, 106453 (2020).
Vicario, C. et al. Generation of 0.9-mJ THz pulses in DSTMS pumped by a Cr:Mg2SiO4 laser. Opt. Lett. 39, 6632–6635 (2014).
Jolly, S. W. et al. Spectral phase control of interfering chirped pulses for high-energy narrowband terahertz generation. Nat. Commun. 10, 2591 (2019).
Zhang, B. L. et al. 1.4-mJ high energy terahertz radiation from lithium niobates. Laser Photon. Rev. 15, 2000295 (2021).
Peralta, E. A. et al. Demonstration of electron acceleration in a laser-driven dielectric microstructure. Nature 503, 91–94 (2013).
Sapra, N. V. et al. On-chip integrated laser-driven particle accelerator. Science 367, 79–83 (2020).
Shiloh, R. et al. Electron phase-space control in photonic chip-based particle acceleration. Nature 597, 498–502 (2021).
Nanni, E. A. et al. Terahertz-driven linear electron acceleration. Nat. Commun. 6, 8486 (2015).
Zhang, D. F. et al. Segmented terahertz electron accelerator and manipulator (STEAM). Nat. Photonics 12, 336–342 (2018).
Huang, W. R. et al. Terahertz-driven, all-optical electron gun. Optica 3, 1209–1212 (2016).
Snively, E. C. et al. Femtosecond compression dynamics and timing jitter suppression in a THz-driven electron bunch compressor. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 6 (2020).
Zhang, D. F. et al. Femtosecond phase control in high-field terahertz-driven ultrafast electron sources. Optica 6, 872–877 (2019).
Hibberd, M. T. et al. Acceleration of relativistic beams using laser-generated terahertz pulses. Nat. Photonics 14, 755–759 (2020).
Xu, H. X. et al. Cascaded high-gradient terahertz-driven acceleration of relativistic electron beams. Nat. Photonics 15, 426–430 (2021).
Tang, H. et al. Stable and scalable multistage terahertz-driven particle accelerator. Phys. Rev. Lett. 24, 074801 (2021).
Zhang, D. et al. Long range terahertz driven electron acceleration using phase shifters. Appl. Phys. Rev. 9, 031407 (2022).
Zhang, D. F. et al. Cascaded multicycle terahertz-driven ultrafast electron acceleration and manipulation. Phys. Rev. X 10, 011067 (2020).
Wang, K. & Mittleman, D. M. Dispersion of surface plasmon polaritons on metal wires in the terahertz frequency range. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 157401 (2006).
Stratton, J. A. In Electromagnetic Theory 524–545 (Wiley-IEEE Press, 2007).
Russell, C. et al. Spectroscopy of polycrystalline materials using thinned-substrate planar Goubau line at cryogenic temperatures. Lab Chip 13, 4065–4070 (2013).
Ayata, M. et al. High-speed plasmonic modulator in a single metal layer. Science 358, 630–632 (2017).
Ummethala, S. et al. THz-to-optical conversion in wireless communications using an ultra-broadband plasmonic modulator. Nat. Photonics 13, 519–524 (2019).
Ng, B. H. et al. Spoof plasmon surfaces: a novel platform for THz sensing. Adv. Opt. Mater. 1, 543–548 (2013).
Ng, B. H. et al. Broadband terahertz sensing on spoof plasmon surfaces. ACS Photonics 1, 1059–1067 (2014).
Wang, K., Barkan, A. & Mittleman, D. M. Propagation effects in apertureless near-field optical antennas. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 305–307 (2004).
Wang, K. L. & Mittleman, D. M. Metal wires for terahertz wave guiding. Nature 432, 376–379 (2004).
Tokita, S. et al. Collimated fast electron emission from long wires irradiated by intense femtosecond laser pulses. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 255001 (2011).
Nakajima, H., Tokita, S., Inoue, S., Hashida, M. & Sakabe, S. Divergence-free transport of laser-produced fast electrons along a meter-long wire target. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 155001 (2013).
Gibbon, P. Short Pulse Laser Interactions with Matter: An Introduction (Imperial College Press, 2005).
Bocoum, M. et al. Anticorrelated emission of high harmonics and fast electron beams from plasma mirrors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 185001 (2016).
Thévenet, M. et al. Vacuum laser acceleration of relativistic electrons using plasma mirror injectors. Nat. Phys. 12, 355–360 (2015).
Tian, Y. et al. Femtosecond-laser-driven wire-guided helical undulator for intense terahertz radiation. Nat. Photonics 11, 242–246 (2017).
Zeng, Y. et al. Guiding and emission of milijoule single-cycle THz pulse from laser-driven wire-like targets. Opt. Express 28, 15258–15267 (2020).
Rivera, N. & Kaminer, I. Light–matter interactions with photonic quasiparticles. Nat. Rev. Phys. 2, 538–561 (2020).
Zhang, D. et al. Coherent surface plasmon polariton amplification via free-electron pumping. Nature 611, 55–60 (2022).
CST (Dassault Systèmes, 2021); https://www.cst.com
Acknowledgements
We thank Y. Liao from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics and W. Chu from Zhangjiang Laboratory for support, advice and discussions. This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1604401); the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) (grant number XDB16); the National Natural Science Foundation of China grants 11922412, 11874372 and 12104471; the Shanghai Pilot Program for Basic Research – Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Branch; the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences; the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; the Shanghai Sailing Program grant 21YF1453900; and the 100 Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Y.-S.Z., X.-Q.Y., L.-W.S., X.-J.W. and Y.T carried out the experimental measurements; X.-Q.Y. and Y.-S.Z. analysed the results with discussions with Y.T., L.-W.S., X.-J.W. and R.-X.L.; Y.T., L.-W.S., X.-J.W. and R.-X.L. initiated early discussions on this topic. Y.T. and R.-X.L. conceived and supervised the project. All authors contributed to the project and the writing of the manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
Authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Photonics thanks Nicholas Matlis, Emilio Nanni and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Comparison of the THz electric field inside the DLW.
a. A snapshot of the simulated electric field inside the DLW when free-space TM01 mode THz radiation was coupled by a focusing lens into the DLW. The energy coupling efficiency for this scenario was 52%, without considering the energy loss during mode conversion. b. Simulated THz field when an identical THz pulse was coupled to the DLW by a metal wire. Although the energy coupling efficiency was 85% for this situation (D = 10 mm), the maximal acceleration field (marked in blue) for the wire-coupling case is 2-fold larger than that of free-space coupling. This higher field strength c arises from the less dispersive waveform and hence the shorter pulse duration of the THz pulse owing to the almost dispersionless waveguiding nature of the THz surface wave on a metal wire.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Exemplification of the electron spectra for different values of D.
a–f Measured electron energy spectra. g–l Integrated beam energy spectra corresponding to a–f. For comparison, four shots for each surface wave traveling distance D are exemplified. These shots are shown in g–l with pink lines, where the highlighted red line indicates the mean value of the data. Note that, bifurcations in some of the spectra images arise possibly from the clockwise and anticlockwise electron trajectories as they revolve around the wire.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Electron energy distribution for ‘no THz inside the DLW’ condition.
The opaque red line indicates the mean value of 15 single-shot results with an FWHM spectrum width of 60% and a central energy of 1.7 MeV.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Transverse spatial distributions of the electrons impinging on the scintillation screen and recorded by the EMCCD.
a, the electrons were emitted directly from the wire. b, the electrons went through the DLW. Note that, in our experiment, since the iron shield with a 1-mm-diameter central hole is fixed 13 mm downstream of the DLW, the electron profiles shown here only represent those who have passed through the shield centre.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–4 and Discussion.
Supplementary Data 1
Source data for Supplementary Fig. 1.
Supplementary Data 2
Source data for Supplementary Fig. 2.
Supplementary Data 3
Source data for Supplementary Fig. 3.
Supplementary Data 4
Source data for Supplementary Fig. 4.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Statistical source data for Fig. 1.
Source Data Fig. 2
Statistical source data for Fig. 2.
Source Data Fig. 3
Statistical source data for Fig. 3.
Source Data Fig. 4
Statistical source data for Fig. 4.
Source Data Extended Data Fig. 1
Statistical source data for Extended Data Fig. 1.
Source Data Extended Data Fig. 2
Statistical source data for Extended Data Fig. 2.
Source Data Extended Data Fig. 3
Statistical source data for Extended Data Fig. 3.
Source Data Extended Data Fig. 4
Statistical source data for Extended Data Fig. 4.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Yu, XQ., Zeng, YS., Song, LW. et al. Megaelectronvolt electron acceleration driven by terahertz surface waves. Nat. Photon. 17, 957–963 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01251-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01251-8
This article is cited by
-
High-flux bright x-ray source from femtosecond laser-irradiated microtapes
Communications Physics (2024)
