Quasimonoenergetic electron beams from laser wakefield acceleration in pure nitrogen

Quasimonoenergetic electron beams with maximum energy > 0.5 GeV and 2 mrad divergence have been generated in pure nitrogen gas via wakefield acceleration with 80 TW, 30 fs laser pulses. Long low energy tail features were typically observed due to continuous ionization injection. The measured peak electron energy decreased with the plasma density, agreeing with the predicted scaling for electrons. The experiments showed a threshold electron density of 3 x 10(18) cm(-3) for self-trapping. Our experiments suggest that pure Nitrogen is a potential candidate gas to achieve GeV monoenergetic electrons using the ionization induced injection scheme for laser wakefield acceleration. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3685464]