All-optical Thomson scattering

With the development of laser and accelerator technology, and improvement of the particle energy and field intensity, the scattering process between electron and photon will reach the highly nonlinear regime, where the multi-photon process takes place and the quantum electrodynamics starts to play a role. In the near future, with the commissioning of the multi-PW laser facilities, these effects will be available. In this article, we review the recent progress of electron-photon scattering experiments, from single or few-photon regime to high-order multi-photon regime. In the scattering process, collimated bright X/gamma-energy photons are generated, making it possible to realize a compact top-table bright light source, which is also known as inverse Compton scattering source. Finally, the prospects and challenges of scattering experiments are discussed.