The resonant multi-pulse ionization injection

The production of high-quality electron bunches in Laser Wake Field Acceleration relies on the possibility to inject ultra-low emittance bunches in the plasma wave. In this paper, we present a new bunch injection scheme in which electrons extracted by ionization are trapped by a large-amplitude plasma wave driven by a train of resonant ultrashort pulses. In the Resonant Multi-Pulse Ionization injection scheme, the main portion of a single ultrashort (e.g., Ti: Sa) laser system pulse is temporally shaped as a sequence of resonant sub-pulses, while a minor portion acts as an ionizing pulse. Simulations show that high-quality electron bunches with normalized emittance as low as 0.08 mm x mrad and 0.65% energy spread can be obtained with a single present-day 100TW-class Ti: Sa laser system. Published by AIP Publishing.