Photonic structure based acceleration of non-relativistic electrons - simulations and proof-of-concept experiment

We show simulation results of the acceleration of electrons passing close by a transmission grating that is illuminated with Titanium:sapphire femtosecond laser pulses. With 27-keV electrons and a single grating we obtain gradients as high as 100 MeV/m in a distance of 30 nm away from the grating. We show optimization results of the grating geometry, discuss parameter ranges, and infer that a proof-of-concept experiment is worthwhile. We are setting up an experiment and present first results in the talk.