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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Direct acceleration of an electron in infinite vacuum by a pulsed radially-polarized laser beam
Liang Jie Wong1, Franz X Kärtner
1Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ljwong@mit.edu
Abstract:
We study the direct acceleration of a free electron in infinite vacuum along the axis of a pulsed radially-polarized laser beam. We find that net energy transfer from laser pulse to electron is maximized with the tightest focusing. We show that the net energy gain of an electron initially moving at a relativistic velocity may exceed more than half the theoretical limit of energy transfer, which is not possible with an initially stationary electron in the parameter space studied. We determine and analyze the power scaling of maximum energy gain, extending our study to include a relatively unexplored regime of low powers and revealing that substantial acceleration is already possible without the use of petawatt peak-power laser technology.
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