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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/L79151/01
Title: LASER PLASMA WAVE GENERATION AND ELECTRON ACCELERATION
Principal Investigator: Dangor, Dr AE
Other Investigators:
Bell, Professor AR Danson, Mr C Danson, Mr CN
Neely, Professor D
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Physics
Organisation: Imperial College London
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 September 1997 Ends: 31 May 2001 Value (£): 298,685
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Plasmas - Laser & Fusion
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
This proposal seeks to extend our work with the Vulcan short pulse laser on the generation of plasma waves and electron acceleration based on the self-modulated scheme. Beams of high brightness and energies of 100MeV have been observed. The Vulcan upgrade will enable the generation of beams of even greater brightness and higher energy. Detailed study of the various processes which characterise the interaction will be made. One such process is the growth, wave breaking and decay of the plasma wave. For this a frequency resolved optically gated diagnostic will be used. Another process is self-focusing of the laser. This is of interest in other areas of laser-plasma physics. Thomson scattering of both the pump laser and a separate probe will be made. A prepulse will be used to study plasma wave seeding. Experiments at the second harmonic in the green are envisaged. A larger interaction volume will be accessed by increasing the f-number of the focusing optics.Two frequency operation of Vulcan will enable the beat wave scheme to be studied in the short pulse mode at high intensity. A controlled growth of the plasma wave to the full relativistic limit is expected.
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Organisation Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk