Regular Article

Optimizing direct laser-driven electron acceleration and energy gain at ELI-NP

Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics ELI-NP, “Horia Hulubei” National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, 30 Reactorului Street, RO-077125 Bucharest-Magurele, Romania

^a e-mail: etele.molnar@eli-np.ro

Received: 31 July 2020
Received in final form: 26 August 2020
Accepted: 25 September 2020
Published online: 1 December 2020

Abstract

We study and discuss electron acceleration in vacuum interacting with fundamental Gaussian pulses using specific parameters relevant for the multi-PW femtosecond lasers at ELI-NP. Taking into account the characteristic properties of both linearly and circularly polarized Gaussian beams near focus we have calculated the optimal values of beam waist leading to the most energetic electrons for given laser power. The optimal beam waist at full width at half maximum correspond to few tens of wavelengths, Δw₀ = {13, 23, 41}λ₀, for increasing laser power P₀ = {0.1, 1, 10} PW. Using these optimal values we found an average energy gain of a few MeV and highest-energy electrons of about 160 MeV in full-pulse interactions and in the GeV range in case of half-pulse interaction.