Plasma photonic spatiotemporal synchronization of relativistic electron and laser beams

Abstract

We present an ultracompact plasma-based method to measure spatial and temporal concurrence of intense electron and laser beams nonintrusively at their interaction point. The electron beam couples with a laser-generated seed plasma in dependence of spatiotemporal overlap, which triggers additional plasma production and manifests as enhanced plasma afterglow. This optical observable is exploited to measure beam concurrence with ∼4 μm spatial and ∼26.7 fs temporal accuracy, supported by auxiliary diagnostics. The afterglow interaction fingerprint is highly sensitive and enables ultraversatile femtosecond-micrometer beam metrology.