Eur. Phys. J. D 55, 427-432 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2009-00199-0

First observation of quasi-monoenergetic electron bunches driven out of ultra-thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) foils

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
² Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Coulombwall 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
³ Los Alamos National Laboratory, 87545, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
⁴ Department of Physics, MS-220, University of Nevada, 89557, Reno, Nevada, USA
⁵ Forschungszentrum Dresden Rossendorf, Bautzner Landstrasse 128, 01328 Dresden, Germany
⁶ RRC Kurchatov Institute, 123182 Moscow, Russia
⁷ Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

Corresponding author: ^a daniel.kiefer@mpq.mpg.de

Received: 30 November 2008
Revised: 3 March 2009
Published online: 9 July 2009

Abstract

Electrons have been accelerated from ultra-thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) foils by an ultrahigh-intensity laser pulse. A distinct quasi-monoenergetic electron spectrum peaked at 30 MeV is observed at a target thickness as thin as 5 nm which is in contrast to the observations of wide spectral distributions for thicker targets. At the same time, a substantial drop in laser-accelerated ion energies is found. The experimental findings give first indication that relativistic electron sheets can be generated from ultra-thin foils which in future may be used to generate brilliant X-ray beams by the coherent reflection of a second laser.