Laser-plasma accelerator-based single-cycle attosecond undulator source

Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs), producing high-quality electron beams, provide an opportunity to reduce the size of free-electron lasers (FELs) to only a few meters. A complete system is proposed here, which is based on FEL technology and consists of an LPA, two undulators, and other magnetic devices. The system is capable to generate carrier-envelope phase stable attosecond pulses with engineered waveform. Pulses with up to 60 nJ energy and 90–400 attosecond duration in the 30–120 nm wavelength range are predicted by numerical simulation. These pulses can be used to investigate ultrafast field-driven electron dynamics in matter.