Use this URL to cite or link to this record in EThOS: | https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.679657 |
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Title: | Studies on the relativistic electrons and X-rays generated by laser wakefield accelerators | ||||||
Author: | Bloom, Michael Samuel |
ISNI:
0000 0004 5371 8964
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Awarding Body: | Imperial College London | ||||||
Current Institution: | Imperial College London | ||||||
Date of Award: | 2014 | ||||||
Availability of Full Text: |
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Abstract: | |||||||
Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) operate through a high intensity ultra short laser pulse exciting a relativis- tic density wave in a plasma. I carried out experiments constructing LWFAs using lasers of a wide range of powers. Thereby allowing me to examine the generation of electrons and x-rays under these different conditions. The compar- ison of these results with my own and existing analytical models and computational modelling is discussed. In fulfilment of this, I developed novel techniques to measure hard x-rays in the tens of KeV energy range. In measure- ment of the relativistic electrons I found it possible to de- velop techniques to not only accurately measure the energy but also discern the three momentum vectors of electrons measured on a multiscreen electron spectrometer. As LWFAs open up the ability to produce high energy elec- tron beams without the need of tens of meters of RF accel- eration cavities and the lasers used to drive them can also be made relatively compact perhaps one of the most excit- ing application of this is the production of hard x-rays for imaging. As the source size of a LWFA betatron source is typically of micron scale, I investigated using LWFA derived x-rays for phase contrast imaging.
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Supervisor: | Mangles, Stuart | Sponsor: | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council | ||||
Qualification Name: | Thesis (Ph.D.) | Qualification Level: | Doctoral | ||||
EThOS ID: | uk.bl.ethos.679657 | DOI: | |||||
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