Laser Driven Electron Acceleration in Vacuum, Gases and Plasmas

Download or read book Laser Driven Electron Acceleration in Vacuum, Gases and Plasmas written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper discusses some of the important issues pertaining to laser acceleration in vacuum, neutral gases and plasmas. The limitations of laser vacuum acceleration as they relate to electron slippage, laser diffraction, material damage and electron aperture effects, are discussed. An inverse Cherenkov laser acceleration configuration is presented in which a laser beam is self guided in a partially ionized gas. Optical self guiding is the result of a balance between the nonlinear self focusing properties of neutral gases and the diffraction effects of ionization. The stability of self guided beams is analyzed and discussed. In addition, aspects of the laser wakefield accelerator are presented and laser driven accelerator experiments are briefly discussed.