Electron acceleration based on Bloch surface waves

Abstract

In this paper, we present an electron acceleration model based on Bloch surface waves (BSWs). In our model, a dielectric multilayer deposited on a prism substrate is used to generate BSWs by a femtosecond laser pulse. It is found that the field enhancement factor of BSWs is larger than that of surface plasmon polaritons. We numerically solve Maxwell's equations to explain the phenomenon in space and time domain. Various aspects of the acceleration mechanism are discussed, including BSWs coupling and evanescent attenuation, the influence of electron injection time and angle, the kinetic energy spectrum, the angular distribution, and the angular-resolved energy spectrum. Such a model provides an all-optical method for electron acceleration.