Manipulating Electrons with Intense Laser Pulses

Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPA) rely on our ability to control the electrons motion with intense laser pulses [1]. The manipulation of such relativistic electrons allows a fine mapping of the longitudinal and radial components of giant electric fields with values that can exceed hundreds of GV/m [2]. This control is crucial to optimize the design of laser plasma accelerators for delivering ultra-short and ultra-bright energetic particle or radiation beams. To illustrate the beauty of laser plasma accelerators I will show some concepts that give improvements the quality of the electron beam, its
stability [3] and its energy gain [4], and its divergence [5]. I will then show how by controlling the quiver motion of relativistic electrons intense and bright X-rays beam are produced in a compact and elegant way [6-8]. Finally I will show some examples of applications.

[1] V. Malka, Europhysics Letters, 115 (2016) 54001
[2] V. Malka et al., Science 22, 298 (2002)
[3] E. Guillaume et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 155002 (2015)
[4] C. Thaury et al., Scientific Report, 10.1038, srep16310, (2015)
[5] C. Thaury et al., Nature Comm. 6, 6860 (2015)
[6] K. Ta Phuoc et al., Nature Photonics 6, 308-311 (2012)
[7] S. Corde et al., Review of Modern Phys. 85 (2013)
[8] I. Andriyash et al., Nature Comm. 5, 4736 (2014)