No abstract

A micrometer-scale “plasma lens” self-constructed by the prepulse and main pulse of the Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) laser is realized to enhance the collimation and acceleration of proton beams in a target normal sheath field acceleration mechanism. Hydrodynamic FLASH and particle-in-cell simulations are carried out and find that a collimated proton source with beam divergence ∼2.7° is generated by the LG laser, which is smaller than the case driven by the traditional Gaussian laser. It demonstrates that the curved sheath field on the “plasma lens” plays an important role in the beam collimation. Such an approach considerably relaxes the constraints of complex design for the target fabrication and auxiliary laser pulse, opening new doors for high-repetition-rate collimated proton accelerations for innovative applications in upcoming high-repetition-rate petawatt laser systems.

Multidimensional instabilities always develop with time during the process of radiation pressure acceleration, and are detrimental to the generation of monoenergetic proton beams. In this paper, a sharp-front laser is proposed to irradiate a triple-layer target (the proton layer is set between two carbon ion layers) and studied in theory and simulations. It is found that the thin proton layer can be accelerated once to hundreds of MeV with monoenergetic spectra only during the hole-boring (HB) stage. The carbon ions move behind the proton layer in the light-sail (LS) stage, which can shield any further interaction between the rear part of the laser and the proton layer. In this way, proton beam instabilities can be reduced to a certain extent during the entire acceleration process. It is hoped such a mechanism can provide a feasible way to improve the beam quality for proton therapy and other applications.