ELFT HÍRADÓ

[Király Beáta <kiraly.beata AT atomki.hu>]

Laser-plasma based electron accelerators 

by Tóth Csaba 
BELLA Center < Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA, USA) 



When: 2025-12-11 Thursday 11:00 

Where: HUN-REN ATOMKI, nagyelőadó (Debrecen, Bem tér 18/c) 





Other information: 
Tea and cookies are offered 30 minutes before the seminar. 



Abstract: 


The acceleration of electrons to multi-GeV energies in short distances in 
plasmas via laser excitation became the topic of intensive research worldwide 
in the last four decades. After several successful laser installations from 
the TW to multi-hundred TW level in LBNL, the BELLA (Berkeley Lab Laser 
Accelerator) system with its PW peak-power, 1 Hz repetition rate and ~35 fs 
pulses has been built as a uniquely dedicated laser plasma acceleration (LPA) 
research tool [1]. The ‘BELLA-PW’ is a Chirped Pulse Amplification laser 
system (CPA) for studying relativistic photon-electron interactions at 
extreme high laser intensities. An overview of two recent upgrades of the 
BELLA laser, including the radiation shielding, laser and radiation interlock 
systems required for the safe and efficient operation will be presented [2]. 
In addition to the latest 10 GeV electron acceleration results [3], emerging 
applications of laser-based particle acceleration will also be discussed. 

    1. K. Nakamura et al., [ http://doi.org/10.1109/JQE.2017.2708601 | 
Diagnostics, Control and Performance Parameters for the BELLA High Repetition 
Rate Petawatt Class Laser ] , IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, 53, 
1200121 (2017). 
    2. S. Hakimi et al., [ https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0089331 | Laser-solid 
interaction studies enabled by the new capabilities of the iP2 BELLA PW 
beamline ] , Physics of Plasmas, 29, 083102 (2022). 
    3. A. Picksley et al., [ https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.255001 | 
Matched Guiding and Controlled Injection in Dark-Current-Free, 10-GeV-Class, 
Channel-Guided Laser-Plasma Accelerators ] , Physical Review Letters 133, 
255001 (2024).