Laser-accelerated MeV-scale collimated electron bunch from a near-critical plasma of a liquid jet target

Generation of a collimated electron bunch with energy of a few MeV is demonstrated experimentally during propagation of 1 TW 10 Hz femtosecond laser radiation through a near-critical plasma formed from a micrometer-scale liquid jet (ethanol) target by ablation and boring with an intense nanosecond pulse. Hydrodynamic and particle-in-cell simulations reveal the evolution of the plasma cloud and help to identify the acceleration mechanism, which is related to self-modulated laser Wakefield acceleration during nonlinear propagation of laser radiation through plasma. The measured bunch divergence is at the level of 0.04 rad with high shot-to-shot stability. The total charge of the particles with energy above 1.6 MeV was estimated at ∼15 pC. The simplicity and robustness of the target design allows for enhanced pulse repetition rate with suppressed debris formation.