Skip to Content

Search: {{$root.lsaSearchQuery.q}}, Page {{$root.page}}

<b>CM-AMO Seminar</b><br><i>Measurement and Modeling of Radiation from Laser Wakefield Accelerators</i>

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
12:00 AM
335 West Hall

Speaker: A. G. R. Thomas (U-M CUOS and Nuclear Engineering)

Modern high-intensity lasers, such as HERCULES in the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan, can generate high amplitude, relativistic plasma waves. Such plasma waves can be used to accelerate electrons by a process known as laser wakefield acceleration. Electron beams produced by laser wakefield acceleration are characterized by having relatively high current density in short and quasi-monoenergetic bunches. Oscillations of these electrons, in the electromagnetic fields of electron plasma cavities, created by laser driven ponderomotive expulsion, lead to extremely bright sources of x-rays, which may be used as future sources of radiation for a number of applications, including femtosecond resolved x-ray spectroscopy. Eventually, such sources may supplement conventional x-ray light sources, as their compact size and potential low cost is highly attractive, and may enable such facilities to be more widely available to the scientific, medical and engineering communities.  Radiation is also emitted in the form of coherent scattering of the background electrons and other emission from the highly dynamic electron motions in the field structure. Presented here is a summary of recent experimental measurements and numerical modeling towards laser wakefield driven compact radiation sources, conducted at the CUOS.