Self-injected electron in self-modulated laser wakefield accelerator

Summary form only given, as follows. The laser wakefield accelerator has been focused to get high acceleration gradient. As a terawatt laser pulse goes through high-density plasma, a strong wakefield is generated and electrons are accelerated to high energy owing to the longitudinal electric field of the wakefield within a short electron-plasma interaction length. In addition, it is known that plenty of electrons are injected from the background plasma when the wakefield passes through it. To investigate this electron self-injection mechanism and acceleration of self-injected electrons, several laser wakefield accelerator experiment has been performed at Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and experimental results of the Self-Modulated Laser Wakefield Accelerator (SM-LWPA) will be presented in this work.