Speaker
Description
Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) can produce gradients of tens to hundreds of GV/m, greatly reducing accelerator size and cost. Carbon nanotube (CNT) bundles, featuring high plasma density (>10
cm
), tunable effective density, and empty channels that enable laser propagation, have attracted interest as solid-state plasma sources. Previous studies have suggested that CNT-based structures can increase acceleration gradients to the TV/m range, making them promising for compact radiation sources. In this work, we model a hollow solid-state plasma channel composed of CNT bundles. A 2 PW laser from the ELI-ALPS High-Field Laser facility is injected into the channel, where self-injected electrons at the nC scale are trapped and accelerated in a TV/m gradient, as shown by particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations with WarpX. We determined the effective plasma density and laser configurations through parameter optimisation with uniform CNTs. Using CNT bundles, we then achieved unprecedented beam quality: >2 nC charge, >100 MeV mean energy, <5% energy spread, and <10 mm·mrad emittance, by tuning the filling factor, bundle diameter, and gap size. Related acceleration processes are also demonstrated.
