Stable 50 MeV Beams from a 100 Hz Laser-Wakefield Accelerator Driven by an OPCPA Laser
Abstract
We demonstrate a laser-wakefield accelerator driven by a high-repetition-rate optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) laser, producing stable, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams at 100 Hz. Using 70 mJ, 8.1 fs laser pulses, we obtain 47 MeV electron beams with 15 pC charge and an intrinsic energy spread below 10%. Measurements over 10,000 consecutive shots show rms fluctuations of only 1.4% in peak energy and 12% in charge, together with low pointing jitter. Principal-component analysis reveals that the beam fluctuations are described by five physically interpretable modes, dominated by slow variations below 1 Hz. Particle-in-cell simulations reproduce the measured spectrum and show that nonlinear self-focusing localizes ionization injection, resulting in the observed narrow energy distribution. The demonstrated combination of electron energy, charge, beam quality, and stability represents a significant step toward high-average-power laserplasma accelerators.
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BibTeX
@misc{smartsev2026stable,
title = {{Stable 50 MeV Beams from a 100 Hz Laser-Wakefield Accelerator Driven by an OPCPA Laser}},
author = {S. Smartsev and J. Wheeler and O. Lundh and I. A. Andriyash and S. Tchetovsky and V. Tomkus and M. Mackeviciute and P. Gecys and G. Raciukaitis and P. P. Gheeta and J. Csontos and M. Samir and C. Kamperidis and D. Papp and Jérôme Faure},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.26390},
eprint = {2609.26390},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05762406v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Stable 50 MeV Beams from a 100 Hz Laser-Wakefield Accelerator Driven by an OPCPA Laser
AU - S. Smartsev
AU - J. Wheeler
AU - O. Lundh
AU - I. A. Andriyash
AU - S. Tchetovsky
AU - V. Tomkus
AU - M. Mackeviciute
AU - P. Gecys
AU - G. Raciukaitis
AU - P. P. Gheeta
AU - J. Csontos
AU - M. Samir
AU - C. Kamperidis
AU - D. Papp
AU - Jérôme Faure
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - HAL
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.26390
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05762406v1
AB - We demonstrate a laser-wakefield accelerator driven by a high-repetition-rate optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) laser, producing stable, quasi-monoenergetic electron beams at 100 Hz. Using 70 mJ, 8.1 fs laser pulses, we obtain 47 MeV electron beams with 15 pC charge and an intrinsic energy spread below 10%. Measurements over 10,000 consecutive shots show rms fluctuations of only 1.4% in peak energy and 12% in charge, together with low pointing jitter. Principal-component analysis reveals that the beam fluctuations are described by five physically interpretable modes, dominated by slow variations below 1 Hz. Particle-in-cell simulations reproduce the measured spectrum and show that nonlinear self-focusing localizes ionization injection, resulting in the observed narrow energy distribution. The demonstrated combination of electron energy, charge, beam quality, and stability represents a significant step toward high-average-power laserplasma accelerators.
ER -