An ultrashort pulse ultra-violet radiation undulator source driven by a laser plasma wakefield accelerator

Anania, Maria Pia and Brunetti, Enrico and Wiggins, Mark and Grant, David William and Welsh, Gregor H. and Issac, Riju and Cipiccia, Silvia and Shanks, Richard and Manahan, Grace and Aniculaesei, Constantin and van der Geer, S.B. and de Loos, M. J. and Poole, M.W. and Shepherd, B. J. A. and Clarke, J.A. and Gillespie, W.A. and MacLeod, A.M. and Jaroszynski, Dino (2014) An ultrashort pulse ultra-violet radiation undulator source driven by a laser plasma wakefield accelerator. Applied Physics Letters, 104 (26). ISSN 0003-6951

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Abstract

Narrow band undulator radiation tuneable over the wavelength range of 150–260 nm has been produced by short electron bunches from a 2 mm long laser plasma wakefield accelerator based on a 20 TW femtosecond laser system. The number of photons measured is up to 9 × 106 per shot for a 100 period undulator, with a mean peak brilliance of 1 × 1018 photons/s/mrad2/mm2/0.1% bandwidth. Simulations estimate that the driving electron bunch r.m.s. duration is as short as 3 fs when the electron beam has energy of 120–130 MeV with the radiation pulse duration in the range of 50–100 fs.