Plasma-based accelerators articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Accelerated electron beams are potentially useful for imaging and different type of light sources. Here the authors demonstrate electron acceleration using metallic laser acceleration with efficiency comparable to that of dielectric laser accelerators.

    • Dingguo Zheng
    • , Siyuan Huang
    •  & Jianqi Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intense laser interaction with matter creates plasma which can act as a nonlinear optical medium. Here the authors demonstrate plasma as a refractive optics for relativistic intensity radiation, evident by the acceleration of multiple electron beams from a single laser pulse passing through the plasma.

    • Omri Seemann
    • , Yang Wan
    •  & Victor Malka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Free-electron lasers (FELs) can produce bright X-ray pulses, but require high quality electron beams. Here the authors show how to generate and preserve ultrabright electron beams from plasma-based accelerators for ultra-compact, high-brightness X-ray FELs.

    • A. F. Habib
    • , G. G. Manahan
    •  & B. Hidding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charged particle interaction and energy dissipation in plasma is fundamentally interesting. Here the authors study proton stopping in laser-produced plasma for the moderate to strong coupling with electrons.

    • S. Malko
    • , W. Cayzac
    •  & L. Volpe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laser wakefield accelerators are compact sources of ultra-relativistic electrons which are highly sensitive to many control parameters. Here the authors present an automated machine learning based method for the efficient multi-dimensional optimization of these plasma-based particle accelerators.

    • R. J. Shalloo
    • , S. J. D. Dann
    •  & M. J. V. Streeter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlled particle acceleration in plasmas requires precise measurements of the excited wakefield. Here the authors report and demonstrate a high-resolution method to measure the effective longitudinal electric field of a beam-driven plasma-wakefield accelerator.

    • S. Schröder
    • , C. A. Lindstrøm
    •  & J. Osterhoff

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma wakefield accelerators promise compact, affordable future particle accelerators, but require deposition of enormous energy into a small volume. Here, the authors measure and simulate how this energy transfers from the wake into surrounding plasma, a process that ultimately governs the accelerator’s repetition rate.

    • Rafal Zgadzaj
    • , T. Silva
    •  & M. C. Downer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shaping particle beams generated from laser-plasma accelerators is challenging. Here the authors demonstrate an all-optical method to structure the accelerated proton beam by modulating and imprinting the spatial laser profile onto the proton beam.

    • Lieselotte Obst-Huebl
    • , Tim Ziegler
    •  & Karl Zeil

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma releases magnetic energy by magnetic reconnection but the clear evidence of this phenomenon in relativistic regime is still lacking. Here the authors present a scheme for laboratory observation of the relativistic magnetic reconnection driven by laser-produced energetic electrons in the plasma.

    • Longqing Yi
    • , Baifei Shen
    •  & Tünde Fülöp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron beam quality in accelerators is crucial for light source application. Here the authors demonstrate beam conditioning of laser plasma electrons thanks to a specific transport line enabling the control of divergence, energy, steering and dispersion and the application to observe undulator radiation.

    • T. André
    • , I. A. Andriyash
    •  & M.-E. Couprie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neutron beams are useful studying fundamental physics problems, fusion process and material properties. Here the authors use intense laser irradiation of deuterated nanowire array targets to create high energy density plasmas capable of efficient generation of ultrafast neutron pulses.

    • Alden Curtis
    • , Chase Calvi
    •  & Jorge J. Rocca

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is a challenge to scale up laser-ion acceleration to higher ion energies. Here the authors demonstrate a hybrid acceleration scheme based on the relativistic induced transparency mechanism using linearly polarised laser interaction with foil targets and its future implication in using high power lasers.

    • A. Higginson
    • , R. J. Gray
    •  & P. McKenna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Different energy transport mechanisms come into play when intense laser pulses interact with dense plasma. Here the authors provide a limit on the plasma density reachable with an intense laser and an insight into the hole boring process.

    • Natsumi Iwata
    • , Sadaoki Kojima
    •  & Kunioki Mima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Monoenergetic proton beams can be useful in many applications but their generation from laser irradiation of targets is challenging. Here the authors demonstrate a laser-accelerated proton bunch with improved density and energy resolution by using a refined target.

    • P. Hilz
    • , T. M. Ostermayr
    •  & J. Schreiber

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, there has been significant progress on the application of laser-generated proton beams in material science. Here the authors demonstrate the benefit of employing such beams in stress testing different materials by examining their mechanical, optical, electrical, and morphological properties.

    • M. Barberio
    • , M. Scisciò
    •  & P. Antici

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Efficient energy transport by laser-driven relativistic electron beams is crucial in many applications including inertial confinement fusion, and particle acceleration. Here the authors demonstrate relativistic electron beam guiding in dense plasma with an externally imposed high magnetic field.

    • M. Bailly-Grandvaux
    • , J. J. Santos
    •  & Z. Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Higher beam quality and stability are desired in laser-plasma accelerators for their applications in compact light sources. Here the authors demonstrate in laser plasma wakefield electron acceleration that the beam loading effect can be employed to improve beam quality by controlling the beam charge.

    • J. P. Couperus
    • , R. Pausch
    •  & A. Irman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wakefield accelerators are a cheaper and compact alternative to conventional particle accelerators for high-energy physics and coherent x-ray sources. Here, the authors demonstrate a field gradient in excess of a gigaelectron-volt-per-metre using a terahertz-frequency wakefield supported by a dielectric lined-waveguide.

    • B. D. O’Shea
    • , G. Andonian
    •  & J. B. Rosenzweig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extraction of ultra-low emittance bunches is an issue to be addressed for future applications of plasma wakefield accelerators. Here, the authors show that the field structure of the plasma could be suitable for this, by measuring the field's longitudinal variation produced by a relativistic electron bunch.

    • C. E. Clayton
    • , E. Adli
    •  & V. Yakimenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma wakefield accelerators produce gradients that are orders of magnitude larger than in conventional particle accelerator, but beams tend to be disrupted by transverse forces. Here the authors create an extended hollow plasma channel, which accelerates positrons without generating transverse forces.

    • Spencer Gessner
    • , Erik Adli
    •  & Gerald Yocky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Table-top laser-plasma ion accelerators have many potential applications, but achieving simultaneous narrow energy spread and high efficiency remains a challenge. Here, the authors produce ion beams with up to 18 MeV per nucleon whilst keeping the energy spread reduced through a self-organized process.

    • Sasi Palaniyappan
    • , Chengkun Huang
    •  & Juan C. Fernández

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pulses of light offer a way to create particle accelerators that are a fraction of the size of conventional approaches. Here, the authors demonstrate the linear acceleration of electrons with kiloelectronvolt energy gain and in extremely short bunches using optically-generated terahertz pulses.

    • Emilio A. Nanni
    • , Wenqian R. Huang
    •  & Franz X. Kärtner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Radiation sources driven by laser-plasma accelerators have the potential to produce shorter bursts of radiation at lower cost than those based on conventional accelerators. Schnell et al.demonstrate the ability to control the polarization of the bursts of hard X-rays produced by such a source.

    • Michael Schnell
    • , Alexander Sävert
    •  & Christian Spielmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laser-plasma accelerators can produce high-energy electron bunches over just a few centimetres of distance, offering possible table-top accelerator capabilities. Wang et al.break the current 1 GeV barrier by applying a petawatt laser to accelerate electrons nearly monoenergetically up to 2 GeV.

    • Xiaoming Wang
    • , Rafal Zgadzaj
    •  & M. C. Downer

  • Article |

    Laser-plasma accelerators can produce giga electronvolt energy electrons over centimetre scales, but their properties depend on the initial injection into the accelerator. Corde et al.study self-injection of electrons into the plasma wake and identify both transverse and longitudinal injection mechanisms.

    • S. Corde
    • , C. Thaury
    •  & V. Malka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-intensity laser-plasma ion generation is promising as a compact proton source for applications like ion beam therapy. Using a femtosecond table-top laser system, Zeilet al. show that protons efficiently gain energy in the pre-thermal intra-pulse phase of the generation process.

    • K. Zeil
    • , J. Metzkes
    •  & U. Schramm

  • Article |

    Future tokamak nuclear fusion reactors depend on efficient current drive methods, but it is hard to penetrate the high-density plasma in these devices. In this paper the authors show that radio frequency waves coupled to lower hybrid plasma waves, when the peripheral temperature of the plasma is high, can penetrate the plasma core.

    • R. Cesario
    • , L. Amicucci
    •  & F. Zonca

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