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Updated: Aug 21, 2026

Non-equilibrium Microwave Plasma for Efficient High Temperature Chemistry
Published on: August 1, 2017
Production of a keV x-ray beam from synchrotron radiation in relativistic laser-plasma interaction
Antoine Rousse1, Kim Ta Phuoc, Rahul Shah
1Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA, CNRS UMR7639, Ecole Polytechnique, Chemin de la Hunière, 91761 Palaiseau, France.
Abstract:
We demonstrate that a beam of x-ray radiation can be generated by simply focusing a single high-intensity laser pulse into a gas jet. A millimeter-scale laser-produced plasma creates, accelerates, and wiggles an ultrashort and relativistic electron bunch. As they propagate in the ion channel produced in the wake of the laser pulse, the accelerated electrons undergo betatron oscillations, generating a femtosecond pulse of synchrotron radiation, which has keV energy and lies within a narrow (50 mrad) cone angle.
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