Ion energy scaling under optimum conditions of laser plasma acceleration from solid density targets

Brantov, A. V.; Govras, E. A.; Bychenkov, V. Yu.; Rozmus, W.

doi:10.1103/physrevstab.18.021301

Cited by 33 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…faster than the standard TNSA  . dependence associated with the ponderomotive scaling [1]) is similar to that what was observed in the [7] at lower laser intensities and predicted by the numerical simulations in [18], where this effect can be attributed to the enhancement of laser absorption with the intensity increase. Forward acceleration of the protons follows a fast-scaling TNSA scenario, as already observed in experiments at relatively low intensities.…”

Section: Gwangju 61005 Koreasupporting

confidence: 72%

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Ion acceleration in electrostatic field of charged cavity created by ultra-short laser pulses of 1020–1021 W/cm2

et al. 2017

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Ion acceleration resulting from the interaction of ultra-high intensity and ultra-high contrast (∼10−10) laser pulses with thin Al foil targets at 30° angle of laser incidence is studied. Proton maximum energies of 30 and 18 MeV are measured along the target normal rear and front sides, respectively, showing intensity scaling as Ib. For the target front bfront= 0.5–0.6 and for the target rear brear= 0.7–0.8 is observed in the intensity range 1020–1021 W/cm2. The fast scaling from the target rear ∼I0.75 can be attributed enhancement of laser energy absorption as already observed at relatively low intensities. The backward acceleration of the front side protons with intensity scaling as ∼I0.5 can be attributed to the to the formation of a positively charged cavity at the target front via ponderomotive displacement of the target electrons at the interaction of relativistic intense laser pulses with a solid target. The experimental results are in a good agreement with theoretical predictions.

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Section: Gwangju 61005 Koreasupporting

confidence: 72%

“…(e.g. [18] ). Since for TNSA protons ∝ , the intensity dependence of cavity accelerated protons is expected to be weaker than for TNSA if the absorption coefficient increases with intensity (I).…”

Section: Gwangju 61005 Koreamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ion acceleration in electrostatic field of charged cavity created by ultra-short laser pulses of 1020–1021 W/cm2

et al. 2017

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“…Such foils should typically have a multimicron thickness that makes them more robust in laser acceleration experiments in contrast to nanoscale solid dense foils, which require an extremely high intensity contrast ratio. Finally, we note that our simulations with low-density targets have demonstrated more than a twofold increase of proton energy compared with the increase in the case of solid dense foils of optimal submicron thickness [24].…”

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confidence: 99%

Synchronized Ion Acceleration by Ultraintense Slow Light

et al. 2016

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An effective scheme of synchronized laser-triggered ion acceleration and the corresponding theoretical model are proposed for a slow light pulse of relativistic intensity, which penetrates into a near-critical-density plasma, strongly slows, and then increases its group velocity during propagation within a target. The 3D PIC simulations confirm this concept for proton acceleration by a femtosecond petawatt-class laser pulse experiencing relativistic self-focusing, quantify the characteristics of the generated protons, and demonstrate a significant increase of their energy compared with the proton energy generated from optimized ultrathin solid dense foils.With the rapid development of laser technology, several acceleration concepts using short relativistically intense laser pulses are applied for generating high-energy ions [1,2]. Most mechanisms of laser-triggered ion generation are tailored to a forward acceleration of ions from solid targets, but a new trend has recently appeared in this field based on using low-density targets [3,4], which could be related to advanced materials such as aerogels, nanoporous carbon, etc. The hope in using such targets are that they may increase the energy of the accelerated ions compared with solid targets, particularly when ions are accelerated by lasers that are now available with ∼1 PW power. One of the challenging ways for accelerating ions up to ∼1 GeV by such lasers is ion wake-field acceleration [5,6], but this is a difficult task for existing high-power laser systems because heavy particles cannot be pre-accelerated and trapped by the wake field as easily as electrons can [7,8].For an effective acceleration in a rare plasma, similarly to electron wake-field acceleration, ions must be preaccelerated up to a velocity close to the speed of light. Based on simplified 1D and 2D numerical simulations, several two-stage schemes for ion acceleration have been proposed [9][10][11][12] to test the idea using an additional target (thin foil or micro-droplets) to pre-accelerate ions in the radiation-pressure-dominated regime [13]. These ions can then be trapped and accelerated in a gas plasma. For the proposed scenario to be viable, an Exawatt-class laser is required. The further development in this direction involved the laser snowplow effect in a near-critical density plasma, where the electrostatic potential generated by the laser pulse accelerates and reflects ions [5,14,15] similarly to collisionless electrostatic shock acceleration [16]. Specifically, a near-critical-density plasma, which reduces the laser group velocity, was proposed [15] for a second stage of accelerating ions initially pre-accelerated from a thin target by a circularly polarized super-Gaussian pulse. Based on the simulation results, a proton acceleration to an energy of hundreds of MeV was reported. It is important that the effect of relativistically induced transparency plays a key role in ion acceleration with a near-critical density plasma [14].

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“…Most modern studies of ion acceleration by femto-and subpicosecond laser pulses are oriented to the use of thin plane solid-state targets (foils), which are most easy to produce (as compared, e.g., with a complex target [3]) and whose thickness can easily be optimized for given parameters of the laser pulse [4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Directed Coulomb explosion of a solid-state foil has been thoroughly investigated for the conditions in which the foil is semi-transparent for the heating laser pulse and the inequality is satisfied [7,8], where is the plasma electron density, is the critical density, and is the standard dimensionless amplitude of the laser field with the wavelength and frequency . However, the practical implementation of this regime requires very high contrast of laser radiation to prevent the destruction of the foil (as a rule, a nanometer-thick one) before the arrival of the main laser pulse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the feasibility of increasing the energy of laser-accelerated protons by using low-density targets

Brantov

Bychenkov

2015

Plasma Phys. Rep.

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Optimal regimes of proton acceleration in the interaction of short high-power laser pulses with thin foils and low-density targets are determined by means of 3D numerical simulation. It is demonstrated that the maximum proton energy can be increased by using low-density targets in which ions from the front surface of the target are accelerated most efficiently. It is shown using a particular example that, for the same laser pulse, the energy of protons accelerated from a low-density target can be increased by one-third as compared to a solid-state target.

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Ion energy scaling under optimum conditions of laser plasma acceleration from solid density targets

Cited by 33 publications

References 40 publications

Ion acceleration in electrostatic field of charged cavity created by ultra-short laser pulses of 1020–1021 W/cm2

Ion acceleration in electrostatic field of charged cavity created by ultra-short laser pulses of 1020–1021 W/cm2

Synchronized Ion Acceleration by Ultraintense Slow Light

On the feasibility of increasing the energy of laser-accelerated protons by using low-density targets

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