Short electron bunches generated by perpendicularly crossing laser pulses

Optical injection of electrons into a laser wakefield accelerator by a low intensity orthogonally colliding laser pulse is investigated using 2D particle-in-cell simulations. The collision of the main laser pulse driving the plasma wave in the cavitated regime and the low intensity injection pulse affects the trajectories of electrons in the crossing region. As a consequence, some electrons are ejected into the front part of the bubble, and these electrons are subsequently trapped in the rear part of the bubble. The injected and accelerated electron bunch reaches a peak energy of 630 MeV after 8 ps of acceleration being as short as 7.0 fs and is quasimonoenergetic with a low energy spread of 20 MeV (3.8%), having a charge of several dozens of pC and a relatively large emittance of 2.27 π · mm · mrad. Two main injection mechanisms—crossing beatwave injection and injection by laser field preacceleration—were identified.