Injection and acceleration of quasimonoenergetic relativistic electron beams using density gradients at the edges of a plasma channel

The injection of quasimonoenergetic electron beams into a laser wakefield accelerator is demonstrated experimentally using density gradients at the edges of a plasma channel. In the experiment, two laser pulses are used; the main laser pulse drives a wakefield, while a second countercrossing laser beam produces a plasma whose expansion creates a channel with significant density gradients. Local injection of electrons in the wakefield is triggered by wave breaking in the density ramp. The injection is localized spatially and leads to the generation of collimated and narrow energy spread relativistic electron beams at the 100 MeV level, with charges in the range of 20-100 pC. The stability of this injection process is compared to the stability of the colliding pulse injection process and is found to be inferior for our experimental conditions. On the other hand, it is found that as the electron beam divergence is smaller in the case of gradient injection, the transverse emittance might be better. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3469581]