UCLA

In this dissertation, the direct laser acceleration (DLA) of ionization-injected electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) operating in the quasi-blowout regime has been investigated through experiment and simulation. In the blowout regime of LWFA, the radiation pressure of an intense laser pulse can push a majority of the plasma electrons out and around the main body of the pulse. The expelled plasma electrons feel the electrostatic field of the relatively-stationary ions and are thus attracted back towards the laser axis behind the laser pulse where they overshoot the axis and set up a wake oscillation. When ionization injection is used, the inner-shell electrons of higher-Z dopant atoms are tunnel ionized near the peak of the laser pulse. Those electrons slip back relative to the wake until they gain enough energy from the longitudinal wakefield to become trapped. Those electrons that are trapped off-axis will undergo betatron oscillations in response to the linear transverse focusing force of the ions. Through experiments and supporting simulations, this dissertation demonstrates that when there is a significant overlap between the drive laser and the trapped electrons in a LWFA cavity, the accelerating electrons can gain energy from the DLA mechanism in addition to LWFA.

When laser pulse overlaps the trapped electrons, the betatron oscillations of the electrons in the plane of the laser polarization can lead to an energy transfer from the transverse electric field of the laser to the transverse momentum of the electrons. This enhanced transverse momentum can then be converted into increased longitudinal momentum via the v x B force of the laser. This process is known as DLA. In this experimental work, the properties of the electron beams produced in a LWFA where the electrons are injected by ionization injection and become trapped without escaping the laser field have been investigated. The maximum measured energy of the produced electron beams scales with the overlap between the electrons and the laser. Undispersed electrons beams are observed to be elliptical in the plane of the laser polarization, and the energy spectrum splits into a fork at higher energies when the electrons beams are dispersed orthogonal to the direction of the laser polarization. These characteristic features are reproduced in particle-in-cell (PIC) code simulations where particle tracking was used to demonstrate that such spectral features are signatures of the presence of DLA in LWFA.

Further PIC simulations comparing LWFA with and without DLA show that the presence of DLA can lead to electron beams that have maximum energies that exceed the estimates given by the theory for the ideal blowout regime. The magnitude of the contribution of DLA to the energy gained by the electron was found to be on the order of the LWFA contribution. In the LWFAs studied here, both DLA and LWFA participate in accelerating the bulk of the electrons in the produced electron beam. The presence of DLA in a LWFA can also lead to enhanced betatron oscillation amplitudes and increased divergence in the direction of the laser polarization.