Development and Applications of a Laser-Wakefield X-ray Source (updated)

In laser-wakefield acceleration (LWFA), a femtosecond laser pulse is tightly focused in a gas to intensities exceeding 1018 W/cm2 . The laser radiation ionizes the medium and excites a plasma wave that travels behind the laser pulse. Electrons can be trapped in the oscillations in the plasma density, where electric fields of the order of several hundreds of GV/m accelerate them to relativistic energies. Together with the longitudinal accelerating fields, transverse electromagnetic forces keep the electrons oscillating in the three-dimensional plasma structure around the direction of propagation of the laser. These betatron oscillations cause the emission of X-ray pulses with a broadband spectrum and femtosecond duration