EPJ D Highlight - Optimising laser-driven electron acceleration
- Details
- Published on 03 December 2020

A new paper examines how tuning aspects of a powerful laser beam can affect the acceleration of electrons, attempting to find the recipe for maximum net energy gain.
The interaction between lasers and matter is at the forefront of new investigations into fundamental physics as well as forming a potential bedrock for new technological innovations. One of the initiatives spearheading this investigation is the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) project. Here the project’s High-Power Laser System (HPLS) — the world’s most powerful laser—is just one of the tools driving electron acceleration with lasers, Direct Laser Acceleration (DLA). In a new paper published in EPJ D, Etele Molnár, ELI-NP, Bucharest, and co-authors study and review the characteristics of electron acceleration in a vacuum caused by the highest-power laser pulses achievable today looking for the key to maximum net energy gain.
In particular, the authors calculate the optimal values of the laser beam required to achieve maximum electron energy for different laser power levels. They observe that tuning certain aspects of a laser such as its beam waist—the point at which a laser beam has its minimum radius—can favourably increase the maximum acceleration of electrons in a vacuum for both linearly and circularly polarised lasers.
As may be expected, Molnár and colleagues find that the net energy of the electrons, and thus their acceleration, is raised with increased laser power for beams with optimal beam waists. The paper describes an average energy gain in electrons of a few MeV in full pulse interactions, in which the highest energy electrons possess is roughly 160 MeV. In other cases such as half-pulse interactions, however, the authors say that these energy gains are almost an order of magnitude greater— reaching up to 1 GeV.
In terms of future research, the paper puts forward other potential directions. For example, the researchers suggest a study with a focus on direct laser acceleration with higher Laguerre Gaussian modes — circularly symmetric beam profiles or lasers with cavities that are cylindrically symmetric —should follow the current paper.
E. Molnár, D. Stutman, C. Ticos (2020) Optimizing direct laser-driven electron acceleration and energy gain at ELI-NP, European Physical Journal D 74:229, DOI: 10.1140/epjd/e2020-10423-x
Open calls for papers
-
EPJ A Topical Issue: First joint gravitational wave and electromagnetic observations: Implications for nuclear and particle physics
-
EPJ A Topical Issue: Heavy and Super-Heavy Nuclei and Elements: Production and Properties
-
EPJ A Topical Issue: Light clusters in nuclei and nuclear matter: Nuclear structure and decay, heavy ion collisions, and astrophysics
-
EPJ A Topical Issue: The QCD Phase Diagram in Strong Magnetic Fields
-
EPJ B Topical Issue: Extreme Value Statistics and Search in Biology: Theory and Simulations
-
EPJ B Topical Issue: Evolutionary Game Theory
-
EPJ B Topical Issue: Recent progress and emerging trends in Molecular Dynamics
-
EPJ D Topical Issue: Atoms and Molecules in a Confined Environment
-
EPJ D Topical Issue: Low Temperature Plasmas: Processes, Diagnostics and Applications
-
EPJ D Topical Issue: Quantum Aspects of Attoscience
-
EPJ D Topical Issue: Spectroscopy of biomolecular ions in vacuo
-
EPJ D Topical Issue: “Advances in Physics of Ionized Gases and Spectroscopy of Isolated Complex Systems: from Biomolecules to Space Particles" (2020)
-
EPJ E Special Issue: Diffusion and Convection in Nature
-
EPJ E Topical Issue: Physics and Geometry of Flexible Plates and Shells
-
EPJ E Topical Issue: Advances in Computational Methods for Biological Physics
-
EPJ E Topical Issue: Disordered, non-equilibrium systems: From supercooled liquids to amorphous solids
-
EPJ E Topical Issue: Physics of phase separation in cell biophysics: From non-equilibrium droplets to reaction-diffusion systems
-
EPJ E Topical Issue: Tissue Mechanics
-
EPJ N Topical Issue: Liquid-gas and liquid-vapour flows: theory, simulation and experiments
-
EPJ Plus Focus Point Issue: Breakthrough optics- and complex systems-based technologies of modulation of drainage and clearing functions of the brain
-
EPJ Quantum Technology: Special Issue on Quantum Industry
-
EPJ Quantum Technology: Special Issue on Quantum Metrology & Quantum Enhanced Measurement
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Transport properties of non-Newtonian nanofluids and applications
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Chaotic variable-order fractional neural networks
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Circuit Application of Chaotic Systems: Modeling, Dynamical Analysis and Control
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Complex Bio Rhythms
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Intense laser-matter interaction in atoms, finite and condensed systems
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Modeling, Machine Learning and Astronomy
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Non-equilibrium phase transitions in heterogeneous systems: biophysical aspects
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Strong Correlations in Dense Matter Physics
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: The Accelerating Universe – Evidence and Theories
-
EPJ ST Special Issue: Tipping in Complex Systems: Theory, Methods & Applications
-
EPJ Techniques and Instrumentation: Instrumentation and Control of Large Helium Cryogenic Systems
-
EPJ Techniques and Instumentation: Diagnostics for electric propulsion systems