Energy limitation of laser-plasma electron accelerators

We report on systematic and high-precision measurements of dephasing, an effect that fundamentally limits the performance of laser wakefield accelerators. Utilizing shock-front injection, a technique providing stable, tunable and high-quality electron bunches, acceleration and deceleration of few-MeV quasi-monoenergetic beams were measured with sub-5-fs and 8-fs laser pulses. Typical density dependent electron energy evolution with 65-300 micrometers dephasing length and 6-20 MeV peak energy was observed and is well described with a simple model.