Abstract

We present the demonstration of high-gradient laser acceleration and deflection of electrons with silicon dual-pillar grating structures using both evanescent inverse Smith–Purcell modes and coupled modes. Our devices accelerate subrelativistic 86.5 and 96.3 keV electrons by 2.05 keV over 5.6 μm distance for accelerating gradients of 370 MeV/m with a 3 nJ mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. We also show that dual pillars can produce uniform accelerating gradients with a coupled-mode field profile. These results represent a significant step toward making practical dielectric laser accelerators for ultrafast, medical, and high-energy applications.

© 2015 Optical Society of America

Laser acceleration and deflection of 96.3  keV electrons with a silicon dielectric structure

Kenneth J. Leedle, R. Fabian Pease, Robert L. Byer, and James S. Harris
Optica 2(2) 158-161 (2015)

Dielectric laser electron acceleration in a dual pillar grating with a distributed Bragg reflector

Peyman Yousefi, Norbert Schönenberger, Joshua Mcneur, Martin Kozák, Uwe Niedermayer, and Peter Hommelhoff
Opt. Lett. 44(6) 1520-1523 (2019)

Phase-dependent laser acceleration of electrons with symmetrically driven silicon dual pillar gratings

Kenneth J. Leedle, Dylan S. Black, Yu Miao, Karel E. Urbanek, Andrew Ceballos, Huiyang Deng, James S. Harris, Olav Solgaard, and Robert L. Byer
Opt. Lett. 43(9) 2181-2184 (2018)

Demonstration of acceleration of relativistic electrons at a dielectric microstructure using femtosecond laser pulses

Kent P. Wootton, Ziran Wu, Benjamin M. Cowan, Adi Hanuka, Igor V. Makasyuk, Edgar A. Peralta, Ken Soong, Robert L. Byer, and R. Joel England
Opt. Lett. 41(12) 2696-2699 (2016)

Surface treatments of dielectric laser accelerators for increased laser-induced damage threshold

Yu Miao, Dylan S. Black, Kenneth J. Leedle, Zhexin Zhao, Huiyang Deng, Andrew Ceballos, Robert L. Byer, James S. Harris, and Olav Solgaard
Opt. Lett. 45(2) 391-394 (2020)