Brilliant particle and photon sources

A.2.1 | Generation of few-femtosecond relativistic electron bunches for 4D imaging

A.2.2 | Brilliant, ultra-short vuv/xuv/x-ray photon beams and next generation diagnostics for laser-generated particle and photon beams

A.2.3 | Laser-driven ion acceleration: from mass-limited targets to ultra-thin foils

A.2.4 | Ultra-dense electron beams and relativistic electron mirror

A.2.5 | Simulations and first experiments for x-ray absorption imaging with laser-based x-ray sources

High-intensity lasers have demonstrated the potential for driving highly brilliant particle and photon beams, whose unique properties will make a broad range of novel applications available. These include, for example, 4D imaging of single molecules and possible significant advances in medical diagnostics and therapy. The key feature of these beams is their exceptionally high brilliance, defined as the photon/particle number per pulse in a given energy band and emission angle emerging from a given source size. On the particle side it is envisioned to generate 100 MeV – 1 GeV, few-femtosecond electron pulses by a laser-plasma accelerator. By virtue of their extremely high phase-space density they may allow to drive an x-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) shrunk from kilometre-size down to table-top format (TT-XFEL), while maintaining a comparable peak brilliance. It can deliver ultrashort, hard x-ray pulses for experiments into single-molecule imaging in structural biology (C.3) or medical diagnostics (D.1). Using less energetic electrons we aim at time-resolved electron diffraction experiments.

In a different approach, we plan to create ultraintense attosecond soft x-ray/xuv photon pulses by high-order harmonic emission from collective relativistic electron motion on laser-irradiated surfaces. These can be used to study transient processes in atoms, molecules and solids with unprecedented temporal resolution (C.2). We will also study new ways in laser-ion acceleration for precise control of ion number and energy on our way towards cost-effective cancer therapy with light ions. Finally, we shall also pursue theoretical studies for converting ultrashort gamma pulses from an upscaled TT-XFEL into brilliant neutron micro-beams for high-precision neutron scattering.