MeV-energy x rays from inverse Compton scattering with laser-wakefield accelerated electrons
S. Chen, N. D. Powers, I. Ghebregziabher, C. M. Maharjan, C. Liu, G. Golovin, S. Banerjee, J. Zhang, N. Cunningham, A. Moorti, S. Clarke, S. Pozzi, and D. P. Umstadter
Accepted
We report the generation of MeV x-rays using an undulator and accelerator that are both driven by the same 100-terawatt laser system. The laser pulse driving the accelerator and the scattering laser pulse are independently optimized to generate high energy electron beam (> 200 MeV) and maximize the output x-ray brightness. The total x-ray photon number was measured to be 2��107, the source size was 5 ��m, and the beam divergence angle was ~10 mrad. The x-ray photon energy, peaked at 1 MeV (reaching up to 4 MeV), exceeds the thresholds of fundamental nuclear processes (e.g., pair production and photodisintegration).