• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.86-91
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• 2009

The electrons injected into a laser wakefield undergo betatron oscillation and give rise to the emission of intense X-ray radiation. To investigate the generation conditions of the X-rays, the relativistic motion of an electron injected in an off-axis position has been simulated with wakefield profiles which are pre-calculated with a two-dimensional particle-in-cell code. The wakefield with a plasma density of $1.78{\times}10^{18}\;cm^{-3}$ is generated by the laser with an intensity of $1.37{\times}10^{18}\;W/cm^2$ and a pulse width of 30 fs. From the calculation of the single particle motion, the characteristics of the betatron radiation are investigated in the time domain. As the transverse injection position increases, the power and the duration time of the radiation increase, but the width of each pulse decreases.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.42-47
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• 2009

The propagation of an intense laser pulse through an upward density-gradient plasma in a self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration (SM-LWFA) is investigated by using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. In the fully relativistic and kinetic PIC simulations, the relativistic and kinetic effects including Landau damping enhance the electron dephasing. This electron dephasing is the most important factor for limiting the energy of accelerated electrons. However, the electron dephasing, which is enhanced by relativistic and kinetic effects in the homogeneous plasma, can be forestalled through the detuning process arising from the longitudinal density gradient. Simulation results show that the detuning process can effectively maintain the coherence of the laser wake wave in the spatiotemporal wakefield pattern, hence considerable energy enhancement is achievable. The spatiotemporal profiles are analyzed for the detailed study on the relativistic and kinetic effects. In this paper, the optimum slope of the density gradient for increasing electron energy is presented for various laser intensities.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.02a
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• pp.42-43
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• 2003

The nonlinear three-wave interaction is an interesting topic having various applications in nonlinear optics, hydrodynamics, acoustic waves, and plasma physics. The resonant interaction between two laser pulses and a plasma wave plays important roles in plasma heating, laser reflection in the inertial confinement fusion (ICF), plasma wakefield generation, and ultra-intense laser pulse amplification and pulse compression using stimulated Raman backscattering (RBS). (omitted)

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.447-456
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• 2005

Laser driven accelerators promise to provide an alternative to conventional accelerator technology. They rely on the excitation of large amplitude density waves in a plasma by the photon pressure of an intense laser. The density oscillations in which electrons and ions are separated, result in extremely large longitudinal electric fields that can be several orders of magnitude larger than those that are used in today's radio-frequency accelerators. Whereas this principle had been demonstrated experimentally for nearly two decades, it was not until 2004 that the production of high quality electron beams around 100 MeV was demonstrated. Analysis, aided by particle-in-cell simulations, as well as experiments with various plasma lengths and densities, indicate that tailoring the length of the accelerator, together with loading of the accelerating structure with beam, are the keys to production of mono-energetic electron beams. Increasing the energy towards a GeV and beyond will require reducing the plasma density and design criteria are discussed for an optimized accelerator module. The current progress and future directions are summarized through comparison with conventional accelerators, highlighting the unique short and long term prospects for intense radiation sources and high energy accelerators based on laser-drivenplasma accelerators.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2009

In a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator, the ponderomotive force of an ultrashort high intensity laser pulse excites a longitudinal wave or plasma bubble in a way similar to the excitation of a wake wave behind a boat as it propagates on the water surface. Electric fields inside the plasma bubble can be several orders of magnitude higher than those available in conventional RF-based particle accelerator facilities which are limited by material breakdown. Therefore, if an electron bunch is properly phase-locked with the bubble's acceleration field, it can gain relativistic energies within an extremely short distance. Here, in the bubble regime we show the generation of stable and reproducible sub GeV, and GeV-class electron beams. Supported by three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, our experimental results show the highest acceleration gradients produced so far. Simulations suggested that the plasma bubble elongation should be minimized in order to achieve higher electron beam energies.