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IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. NS-32, No. 5, October 1985

3539

EXPERIMENTS ON THE PLASMA BEAT-WAVE ACCELERATOR N.A. Ebrahim* 1 University, New Haven, Connecticut, and P. Lavigne and S. Aithal INRS-Energie, Varennes, Quebec, Canada JflL 2PO Yale

Applied

Physics,

U.S.A.

Summary We report an experimental study of the beat-wave excitation of plasma waves using a short pulse, high with two colinearly propagating intensity CO, laser beams to excite the fast wave (v, 2 c) in a longGximum plasma wave scale-length underdense plasma. = 0.19 with effective longitudinal amplitudes nI/no electric field gradients of = 6 GV/m over a distance of 0.5 mm were achieved in these experiments. Introduction In the past decade there have been numerous analytical and numerical studies of the beat-wave excitation of plasma waves because of a number of potentially important applications in the fields of plasma physics, astrophysics, and particle accelerator The theoretical work to date has been summfphysics. rized in a recent review on this subject by Cohen . Over this period however, there have been very few The first exoerimental studies of this prohlem. experimental study of the beat-wave excitat$on of plasma waves was reported by Stansfield et al. , who used the optical mixing of two dye laser beams to excite the plasma waves in a plasma jet and observed by Thomson scattering of a probe ruby these waves This experiment has recently been laser beam. repeated using a long pulse, low intensity CO, laser with two counter-propagating beams ins which a slow electrostatic wave (vp < c) was excited .
I

.- -_...
Oscillator ,2!5ns High Pressure Amplifier -

Electron Spectrometer Foil 10.6 Probe micron Pulse Electron Spectrometer w

Fig.

Schematic

of

experimental

arrangement.

In this paper we report an experimental study of the heat-wave excitation of plasma waves using a short pulse, high intensity, CO, laser with two colinearly propagating beams to excite the fast wave (v A xi in a long-scale-length underdense plasma. that the potential troughs associated with the longitudinal plasma wave can trap sufficiently energetic electrons from a plasma background and accelerate them to relativistic energies, when the appropriate density resonance condition is satisfied. Experiments The schematic of the experimental arrangement is shown in Fig. 1. The experiments were performed with a Cf12 laser delivering about 50 Joules in a 1.2 ns FWHM oulse4. For dual wavelength experiments, the laser chain was used to amplify the 9P(ZO) line at 1046.8 cm-l (x = 9.55 urn) and the lOP(16) line at 947.i4 Cm- (x = 10.55 Ilmj. Since these iines have similar small signal gain, a good control of the relative energy at each frequency could be maintained. The use of reflective focusing optics and parallel a beam windows all along the laser chain ensures colinearity of better than 0.15 prad as measured in The P-polarized light beam was focused the far field. at near normal incidence (< 8") by an f/2.8, 25 cm

focal length, diamond-turned parabola. At best focus, 50% of the energy was contained within a 120 Mm diameter focal spot. The displacement at the focus of the parabola was less than 20 pm between the two wavelenqths. Only those shots for which the synchronization between the pulses at each frequency was better than IOIl ps as measured on a 1 GHz oscilloscope. were retained for analysis. The underdense plasma was produced by exploding a ;hi;Q,Earbonz foil (120 A) with a high intensity * W/cm ) laser prepulse which preceded the main The carbon foils were mounted on pump pulse by 25 ns. aluminum washers with a clear aperture of about 3 mm, and produce a parabolic density profile (Fig. 1). Transmission measurements on the 120 A foil show that approximately 35% of the energy in the prepulse is transmitted, so that the foil goes underdense shortly As the plasma after the peak of the prepulse. expands, the peak electron density decreases until it reaches the required resonant value for the two wavelengths, during the main pulse. The plasma density was measured with a MachZehnder interferometer using a 10.6 1~1 probe pulse with a 1 ns time resolution, which observed the plasma in a direction perpendicular to the la-ser axis, so that plasma on both sides of the original foil could he observed simultaneously. A typical density profile on the hackside of the foil taken at the beqinning of On the frontside, the main pulse is shown in Fig. 2. the plasma profile was very similar to that shown in Fig. 2. The peak electron density at the beginning of close to the quarter-critical the main pulse is density for the 10.6 pm beam (ne = 2.5 x 1018 cms3), with a density plateau around the resonant density of 1o17 cm-3.
1985 IEEE

*Present

address:

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories Chalk River, Ont., Canada KOJ 110

OOIS-9499/85/1OCO-3539$01.000

3540

A 0

0.4

O-8

1.2

Fig.

Electron density the foil. Profile similar to this.

profile on the backside of on the frontside is very

remained unchanged. However the forward spectrum was reduced by about two orders of magnitude and the maximum energy electrons observed were now only under 2 MeV, so that the forward spectrum was now very similar to the backward spectrum. Integrating under the curve for the forward emission (under dual wave-; length illumination) we find that there are 3 x 10 electrons/Sr accelerated in the forward direction with energies between l-3 MeV. The electrons in the backward direction and in the forward direction with single wavelength illumination are emitted when the foil is first irradiated by the prepulse (as was confirmed by numerous experimental observations) and are probably due to a combination of resonance absorption, Raman 'backtwo plasmon decay and stimulated scattering. The larqe number of electrons with the highest energies are- only observed in the forward direction with two wavelength illumination. Furthermore, there appears to be a resonant density at which energetic electrons observed in the forward are direction. With the same level of prepulse, the same delay between the prepulse and main oulse. and with the same energy in 'each wavelength as'in F;g. 3, the most energetic electrons were only observed with a foil thickness between 120-160 A.

The high energy electron emission was observed with two absolutelv calibrated. 180' focusina spectrometers, one in ihe forward direction (laserpropagation direction) and the other in the backward direction making an angle of 27' with respect to the The enersv ranae covered by the incident laser beam. spectrometers was 200 keV to 3 hileV for the forward spectrograph and 200 keV to 2 MeV for the backward spectrograph. electromagnetic waves (wo, kl) at 10.6 vrn are injected resonant density underdense plasma of the beat of the two waves qives rise to a non-linea; pondermotive force V<E*> which excites plasma oscillations at the frequency wp and wavenumber k where P = w. - w1 and t = To -7tp (1) "P P This process mixing or forward the phase velocity may also be regarded as optical Since w. >> "p, Raman scattering. vo is given by = c l-7 When two travelling

1041 I

3 =F-7 - 1 vg 0 = VP = kp
is the group

i
velocity

2 6i
"P

l/2
-=c

(2)
Fig. 3 (a) electroFig. 3 (b)

Electron

Energy

(MeV)

of

the

Figure 3(a) shows typical high energy electron emission in the forward direction with dual wavelength In the two irradiation of a 120 A carbon foil target. wavelength case, the intensity in the two wavelengths In the was approximately equal (= 3 x 1Ol3 W/cm'). forward direction electrons with energies up to 3 YeV the electron emission being peaked in were observed, In the backwards the direction of the laser beams. direction (Fig. 3(b)) the electron emission was about two orders of magnitude lower than in the forward direction, was nearly isotropic and the maximum energy When the same of electrons observed was under 2 YeV. underdense plasma was irradiated with a single waveat approximately the same length heam (10.6 lfm) the backward emission W/cm') intensity (7 x 10

Accelerated electron distribution in the forward direction with two wavelength laser irradiation. Accelerated electron distribution in the forward direction with single wavelength laser irradiation. In the backward the direction distribution was very similar to this under single or dual wavelength irradiation.

To compare with theory, we use the optical mixing theory of Rosenbluth and Liu' to calculate the amplitude of the plasma wave. According to this theory, the amplitude of the plasma wave grows linearly in time until it saturates as a result of the relativThe saturated amplitude is istic frequency shift. given by

1=
0

(-3

16

l/3 49)

z 6 ,y 10-q

1j3

3541 = eEi/mnc = vOi/c is the oscillatory where Y velocitv of an electron in the laser beam. and In is the intensity in each line assuming that the pump However in our finite lines are of equal strength. geometry, the plasma wave energy can also be lost by Calculations convection either axially or radially. of this effect show that convection could limit the wave amplitude to a value given by scalelength of approximately 500 ?yrn the2 threshold intensity for this process is = 10 is W/cm , which exceeded by the main las'er pulse. The phase velocity of the Raman-generated plasmons at the quarter critiso that electrons with maxical density vp = c/43, mum energy E = 2mv * = 340 keV are generated. These electrons are trap Bed by the beat-wave excited plasma waves and accelerated to approximately 3.5 MeV. Conclusions We have experimentally demonstrated the beat-wave excitation of plasma waves using a short pulse, high Electrons with initial energies intensity CO2 laser. above 150 keV, generated by Raman backscattering instability, were trapped by the plasma waves and accelerated to maximum enerqies of 3.5 MeV, corresponding to a wave amplitude nl/no = 0.19. The effective electric field aradient achieved in these experiments 6 GV/m for a modest was approximp$ ely laser intensity of 3 x-10 W/cm2 at each wavelength, over an acceleration distance which was typically 0.5 mll. Acknowledgments This work was performed under the auspices of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Le Ministere de 1'Education of the province of Ouebec and the U.S. Oepartment of Energy under contract DE-ASO&84OP40194.

For an interaction where L is the interaction length. length equal to the depth of focus (= 500 Pm), conbelow an incident intensity vectiy5 limif! is important W/cm for our experimental conditions. of loated The maximum energy Emax of 6an electron by a plasma wave is given by = 2y2,,,2($ E max where y = (1 - v~*/c~)-~/* = wo/"p = (n,/nc)'/*. = 1.022 ($($4 acceler-

(5)

W/cm*, intensities 10 = 3 x lOI For equal = 0.19 and the maximum electron Eq. (3) gives nl/no However the acceleration energy Emax 5: 20 MeV. distance for the electron to acquire this ener;; = (2c/op)(nc/no) 2 3.3 mm. I Emax/eEL "a our experiments, the interaction length is limited by the depth of focus which is approximately 500 Pm, so that the maximum electron energy expected is approximately 3 MeV in good aqreement with experimental ohservations of electrons with energies of 3-3.5 MeV (Fig. 3(a)). An important point in these experiments is the in which the electrons are trapped by the high An electron with a velocity v' phase velocity wave. and kinetic enerqy (T'-l)moc' in the wave fr+ame 'S lf potential wave of the trapped in llsing the Lorentz transformation e9' > (u'-l)moc*. this-condition can he expressed in terms of the lahoratory frame quantities as (6) where y = (l-3')-'/', yp = (l-$*)-'/2, = vp/c, BP B = v/c, and

References 1. R.I. Cohen, Comments Fusion, 8, 197 (1984). R. Stansfield, z, Rev. Lett., 4. Amini (1984). and F.F. Plasma and Rev. Phys. J. Controlled Meyer, Lett., 53, H. E, Phys. 1441 Pepin, 409

2.

R. Nodwell 149 (1971). Chen, Phys.

manner

3. 4.

P. Lavigne, T.W. Johnston, and F. Martin, M. Piche (1984). M.N. Rosenbluth 29, 701 (1972). and C.S. Oawson,

0. Pascale, Phys. Fluids,

5. 6.

Liu,

Phys. Rev.

Rev. Lett.,

Lett., 43,

T. Tajima and J.M. 267 (1979).

Phys.

v being the particle velocity Normalizing the above frame. trapping condition at wavebreaking will can be shown, that particles

in the laboratory inequality by the in a cold plasma lt be trapped if

= 0.19, B = 0.7 and the For vp = c and nl/nc minimum energy of particles in the laboratory frame which can be trapped is 150-200 keV. Thus with an estimated hackground temperature of between 500 eV and 1 keV, electrons are not accelerated from the thermal backqround distribution. Instead, the enerqetic background electrons are generated by the stimulated Raman backscattering instability excited by the main laser pulse, at the quarter critical density. For a density