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Multistage coupling of independent laser-plasma accelerators

Nature volume 530, pages 190–193 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) are capable of accelerating charged particles to very high energies in very compact structures1. In theory, therefore, they offer advantages over conventional, large-scale particle accelerators. However, the energy gain in a single-stage LPA can be limited by laser diffraction, dephasing, electron-beam loading and laser-energy depletion1. The problem of laser diffraction can be addressed by using laser-pulse guiding2 and preformed plasma waveguides to maintain the required laser intensity over distances of many Rayleigh lengths3; dephasing can be mitigated by longitudinal tailoring of the plasma density4; and beam loading can be controlled by proper shaping of the electron beam5. To increase the beam energy further, it is necessary to tackle the problem of the depletion of laser energy, by sequencing the accelerator into stages, each powered by a separate laser pulse6. Here, we present results from an experiment that demonstrates such staging. Two LPA stages were coupled over a short distance (as is needed to preserve the average acceleration gradient) by a plasma mirror. Stable electron beams from a first LPA were focused to a twenty-micrometre radius—by a discharge capillary-based7 active plasma lens8—into a second LPA, such that the beams interacted with the wakefield excited by a separate laser. Staged acceleration by the wakefield of the second stage is detected via an energy gain of 100 megaelectronvolts for a subset of the electron beam. Changing the arrival time of the electron beam with respect to the second-stage laser pulse allowed us to reconstruct the temporal wakefield structure and to determine the plasma density. Our results indicate that the fundamental limitation to energy gain presented by laser depletion can be overcome by using staged acceleration, suggesting a way of reaching the electron energies required for collider applications6,9.

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Figure 1: The experimental set-up.
Figure 2: Spectra of electron beams produced by staged acceleration.
Figure 3: Simulation results.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Shiraishi and T. Sokollik for their contributions to the initial construction of the set-up and an early version of the experiment, as well as C. Toth, D. Syversrud, N. Ybarrolaza, M. Kirkpatrick, G. Mannino, T. Sipla, D. Evans, R. Duarte, D. Baum and D. Munson for their contributions. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231; by the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration, Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation R&D (NA22); and by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under contracts 0917687, 0935197, and PHY-1415596. This research used computational resources (Edison, Hopper) of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    S. Steinke, J. van Tilborg, C. Benedetti, C. G. R. Geddes, C. B. Schroeder, J. Daniels, K. K. Swanson, A. J. Gonsalves, K. Nakamura, N. H. Matlis, B. H. Shaw, E. Esarey & W. P. Leemans

  2. University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    K. K. Swanson, B. H. Shaw & W. P. Leemans

  3. Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, Eindhoven, 5600MB, The Netherlands

    J. Daniels

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Contributions

All authors contributed extensively to the work in this paper.

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Correspondence to W. P. Leemans.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Simulation results with quartic transverse plasma density profile.

a, Waterfall plot of electron energy spectra as a function of delay, with the same colour scale as in Fig. 2b. The reference spectrum (that is, the spectrum computed for delays greater than 0, without the influence of laser 2) was subtracted from each simulation spectrum in a similar way as for the experimental results in Fig. 2b. b, The quartic transverse density profile used in the simulation is , with ε = 0.7 (red dashed line). The chosen form for the quartic profile is such that for any chosen ε (0 ≤ ε ≤ 1), the matched spot size in the limit of a low laser power and low laser intensity is the same as for the parabolic profile ε = 1 (blue line). n0 is the on-axis density, r is the transverse (radial) coordinate, and α is the parameter controlling the depth of the plasma channel.

Source data

Extended Data Figure 2 Simulation with optimized laser–plasma parameters.

Waterfall plot of electron energy spectra as a function of delay. This simulation assumed matched laser-guiding conditions, and a more-energetic injector beam with reduced energy spread (as compared with the experimental set-up); the simulation results indicate that roughly 90% trapping of the electron beam can be achieved. The injector electron beam had a central energy of 350 MeV, a charge of 10 pC, an energy spread of 6% (r.m.s.) and a divergence of 2.5 mrad (full width at half-maximum). The laser pulse energy was 1 J. The laser spot size was w0 = 40 μm. The red line shows the fraction of trapped charge (scale on the right).

Source data

Extended Data Figure 3 Experimental results obtained with a reversed (defocusing) current direction in the second LPA stage.

Main figure, a waterfall plot of electron spectra (subtracted by the reference) as a function of delay; the electron charge density is colour coded, and the total energy of the electron beam is shown as black circles. Inset, the unperturbed reference beam. Electrons trapped in the region of the first laser focus will subsequently dephase/defocus under these conditions, and thus do not experience a detectable energy gain at the end of the second capillary.

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Steinke, S., van Tilborg, J., Benedetti, C. et al. Multistage coupling of independent laser-plasma accelerators. Nature 530, 190–193 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature16525

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