Laser-driven Electron Acceleration in Plasmas with Few-Cycle Pulses

We report on laser-driven electron acceleration with 8 fs -three optical cycle- long pulses and only 40 mJ energy. This situation constitutes an ideal parameter range for laser wake-¯eld acceleration as prophesied by theory and numerical simulations, which was experimentally not explored before. The produced electron spectra are monoenergetic with a peak in the tens-of-MeV range -up to 50 MeV- and free of low-energy electrons with thermal spectrum. The electron beam has a typical divergence of 5 - 10 mrad. The accelerator is routinely operated at 10 Hz and correspondingly it is a promising source for several applications.