Generation of tunable, 100-800 MeV quasi-monoenergetic electron beams from a laser-wakefield accelerator in the blowout regime

In this paper, we present results on a scalable high-energy electron source based on laser wakefield acceleration. The electron accelerator using 30-80 TW, 30 fs laser pulses, operates in the blowout regime, and produces high-quality, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams in the range 100-800 MeV. These beams have angular divergence of 1-4 mrad, and 5%-25% energy spread, with a resulting brightness 10(11) electrons mm(-2) MeV-1 mrad(-2). The beam parameters can be tuned by varying the laser and plasma conditions. The use of a high-quality laser pulse and appropriate target conditions enables optimization of beam quality, concentrating a significant fraction of the accelerated charge into the quasi-monoenergetic component. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4718711]