INTERACTION OF HIGH-INTENSITY LASER BEAM WITH STRUCTURED SOLID SURFACE PLASMA FOR WAKEFIELD ACCELERATION

Recent research into the interaction between highintensity
beams and surface plasmas has revealed the significant
potential for generating extremely strong (TV/m) fields
for particle acceleration and radiation production. By overcoming
several longstanding challenges in beam–solid interactions,
this emerging approach opens new opportunities to
extend the energy frontier of particle physics while enabling
the development of next-generation micro-scale accelerator
facilities with unprecedented flexibility. At the same time,
it provides new insights into the highly complex nonlinear
dynamics of surface plasmons (SPs) under strong-field conditions
and establishes a previously unexplored regime of
plasma-based particle acceleration. In this study, we theoretically
and numerically investigate high-intensity laser-driven
excitation of relativistic surface plasmons (RSPs) on microscale
smooth surfaces for high-gradient wakefield generation
by using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Sub-TeV/m-level
leaky and bubble wakefields are shown to be driven by a TW
laser with high energy efficiency, enabling the acceleration
of both electrons and positrons. These results provide a new
pathway toward the development of ultrahigh-gradient, ultracompact
particle accelerators for a broad range of scientific
and technological applications.