High-energy-density electron-positron pairs play an increasingly important role in many potential applications. Here, we propose a scheme for enhanced positron production by an ultra intense laser irradiating a gas-Al compound target via the multi-photon Breit-Wheeler (BW) process. The laser pulse first ionizes the gas and interacts with a near-critical-density plasma, forming an electron bubble behind the laser pulse. A great deal of electrons are trapped and accelerated in the bubble, while the laser front hole-bores the Al target and deforms its front surface. A part of the laser wave is thus reflected by the inner curved target surface and collides with the accelerated electron bunch. Finally, a large number of γ photons are emitted in the forward direction via the Compton back-scattering process and the BW process is initiated. Dense electron-positron pairs are produced with a maximum density of × 6.02 10 27 m −3 . Simulation results show that the positron generation is greatly enhanced in the compound target, where the positron yield is two orders of magnitude greater than that in only the solid slab case. The influences of the laser intensity, gas density and length on the positron beam quality are also discussed, which demonstrates the feasibility of the scheme in practice.

By using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate high-flux dense positrons generation by irradiating an ultra-intense laser pulse onto a tapered hollow target. By using a laser with an intensity of 4 × 1023 W/cm2, it is shown that the Breit-Wheeler process dominates the positron production during the laser-target interaction and a positron beam with a total number >1015 is obtained, which is increased by five orders of magnitude than in the previous work at the same laser intensity. Due to the focusing effect of the transverse electric fields formed in the hollow cone wall, the divergence angle of the positron beam effectively decreases to ∼15° with an effective temperature of ∼674 MeV. When the laser intensity is doubled, both the positron flux (>1016) and temperature (963 MeV) increase, while the divergence angle gets smaller (∼13°). The obtained high-flux low-divergence positron beam may have diverse applications in science, medicine, and engineering.

By using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the dynamics of ultraintense Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) laser pulses interacting with a wire target. When a relativistic LG-mode laser pulse sweeps a wire target, annular electron bunches with attosecond duration are periodically dragged out of the left tip of the wire. Due to the radial laser electric field force exerted on the electrons, the annular bunches are tightly constrained near the target surface and steadily propagate along the wire. A strong return current is thus induced to satisfy the plasma neutralization condition. Once leaving from the right tip of the target, the electron emission angle gradually decreases and each hollow electron bunch is converged into an electron disc. Under the action of the longitudinal electric field, electrons are continuously accelerated to 100s MeV. At the same time, the laser angular momentum is transferred efficiently to the beam angular momentum (BAM) of the bunches. The structure of the dense short electron bunches is stable and keeps intact for more than 300 fs. We can manipulate the quality of the bunches by changing the laser and target parameters, such as the laser handedness and intensity, beam waist radius, wire length and radius. The scheme paves the way for the generation of high-quality attosecond electron bunches with low divergence, high beam charge and large BAM, which will have wide-range applications in various domains.

Multiple lasers interacting with a deuterated (D) pitcher-catcher target and neutron generation are investigated using two-dimensional hybrid particle-in-cell and Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that when multiple laser pulses are focused on the front surface of the pitcher layer, D + ion acceleration by target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) is enhanced by the interfering overlapped light fields and the resulting periodic target-surface structure. With three laser pulses each of 4.5 × 10 19 W cm −2 intensity, 33 fs duration and ~160 mJ energy, focusing at suitable angles on the pitcher layer, one can obtain 15 MeV D + ions and ~25% laser-to-D + ions energy conversion efficiency. As the resulting high-energy-density D + ions bombard the catcher layer, D-D fusion reactions are triggered. About 3.6 × 10 7 neutrons can be produced, with the maximum neutron production rate as high as 3.1 × 10 36 m −3 s −1 , almost an order of magnitude higher than that from a single laser of the same total energy.

By using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we propose a scheme for strong coupling of a petawatt laser with an opening gold cone filled with near-critical-density plasmas. When relevant parameters are properly chosen, most laser energy can be fully deposited inside the cone with only 10% leaving the tip opening. Due to the asymmetric ponderomotive acceleration by the strongly decayed laser pulse, high-energy-density electrons with net laser energy gain are accumulated inside the cone, which then stream out of the tip opening continuously, like a jet. The jet electrons are fully relativistic, with speeds around 0.98−0.998 c and densities at 1020/cm3 level. The jet can keep for a long time over 200 fs, which may have diverse applications in practice.