High-repetition-rate few-attosecond high-quality electron beams generated from crystals driven by intense X-ray laser

Liang Zhenfeng; Shen Baifei; Zhang Xiaomei; Zhang Lingang

doi:10.1063/5.0004524

Volume 5 Issue 5

Sep. 2020

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Liang Zhenfeng, Shen Baifei, Zhang Xiaomei, Zhang Lingang. High-repetition-rate few-attosecond high-quality electron beams generated from crystals driven by intense X-ray laser[J]. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2020, 5(5): 054401. doi: 10.1063/5.0004524

Citation:

Liang Zhenfeng, Shen Baifei, Zhang Xiaomei, Zhang Lingang. High-repetition-rate few-attosecond high-quality electron beams generated from crystals driven by intense X-ray laser[J]. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2020, 5(5): 054401. doi: 10.1063/5.0004524

Citation:

Liang Zhenfeng, Shen Baifei, Zhang Xiaomei, Zhang Lingang. High-repetition-rate few-attosecond high-quality electron beams generated from crystals driven by intense X-ray laser[J]. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2020, 5(5): 054401. doi: 10.1063/5.0004524

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High-repetition-rate few-attosecond high-quality electron beams generated from crystals driven by intense X-ray laser

doi: 10.1063/5.0004524

1.
Department of Physics, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China
2.
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China

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Corresponding author: a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: bfshen@shnu.edu.cn
Received Date: 2020-02-11
Accepted Date: 2020-07-06

Available Online: 2020-09-01

Publish Date: 2020-09-15

Abstract

Abstract

Advances in X-ray laser sources have paved the way to relativistic attosecond X-ray laser pulses and opened up the possibility of exploring high-energy-density physics with this technology. With particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the interaction of realistic metal crystals with relativistic X-ray laser pulses of parameters that will be available in the near future. A wakefield of the order of TV/cm is excited in the crystal and accelerates trapped electrons stably even though the wakefield is locally modulated by the crystal lattice. Electron injection either occurs at the sharp crystal–vacuum boundary or is controlled by coating the crystal with a high-density film. High-repetition-rate attosecond (20 as) monoenergetic electron beams of energy 125 MeV, charge 100 fC, and emittance 1.6 × 10⁻⁹ m rad can be produced by shining MHz X-ray laser pulses of energy 2.1 mJ onto coated crystals several micrometers thick. Such a miniature crystal accelerator, which has high reproducibility and allows sufficient control of the parameters of the electron beams, greatly expands the applications of X-ray free electron lasers. For example, it could serve as an ideal electron source for ultrafast electron diffraction and ultrafast electron microscopy to achieve attosecond resolution.

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References(44)

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