Meter-scale conditioned hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized plasma channels


Picksley, A, Alejo, A, Shalloo, RJ, Arran, C, von Boetticher, A, Corner, L ORCID: 0000-0002-3882-1272, Holloway, JA, Jonnerby, J, Jakobsson, O, Thornton, C et al (show 2 more authors) (2020) Meter-scale conditioned hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized plasma channels. PHYSICAL REVIEW E, 102 (5). 053201-.

This is the latest version of this item.

[img] Text
2008.13683v1.pdf - Submitted version
Available under License : See the attached licence file.
Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

We demonstrate through experiments and numerical simulations that low-density, low-loss, meter-scale plasma channels can be generated by employing a conditioning laser pulse to ionize the neutral gas collar surrounding a hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized (HOFI) plasma channel. We use particle-in-cell simulations to show that the leading edge of the conditioning pulse ionizes the neutral gas collar to generate a deep, low-loss plasma channel which guides the bulk of the conditioning pulse itself as well as any subsequently injected pulses. In proof-of-principle experiments, we generate conditioned HOFI (CHOFI) waveguides with axial electron densities of n_{e0}≈1×10^{17}cm^{-3} and a matched spot size of 26μm. The power attenuation length of these CHOFI channels was calculated to be L_{att}=(21±3)m, more than two orders of magnitude longer than achieved by HOFI channels. Hydrodynamic and particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that meter-scale CHOFI waveguides with attenuation lengths exceeding 1 m could be generated with a total laser pulse energy of only 1.2 J per meter of channel. The properties of CHOFI channels are ideally suited to many applications in high-intensity light-matter interactions, including multi-GeV plasma accelerator stages operating at high pulse repetition rates.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: 12 pages, 9 figures
Uncontrolled Keywords: physics.acc-ph, physics.acc-ph, physics.plasm-ph
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 12 Oct 2020 07:54
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 23:29
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.102.053201
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3103972

Available Versions of this Item

Dimensions
Altmetric
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)