All-optical cascaded laser wakefield accelerator using ionization-induced injection

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Jul 15;107(3):035001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.035001. Epub 2011 Jul 11.

Abstract

We report on near-GeV electron beam generation from an all-optical cascaded laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA). Electron injection and acceleration are successfully separated and controlled in different LWFA stages by employing two gas cells filled with a He/O2 mixture and pure He gas, respectively. Electrons with a Maxwellian spectrum, generated from the first LWFA assisted by ionization-induced injection, were seeded into the second LWFA with a 3-mm-thick gas cell and accelerated to be a 0.8-GeV quasimonoenergetic electron beam, corresponding to an acceleration gradient of 187 GV/m. The demonstrated scheme paves the way towards the multi-GeV laser accelerators.