Boosted acceleration of protons by tailored ultra-thin foil targets.

ABSTRACT: We report on a detailed experimental and numerical study on the boosted acceleration of protons from ultra-thin hemispherical targets utilizing multi-Joule short-pulse laser-systems. For a laser intensity of 1?×?1020?W/cm2 and an on-target energy of only 1.3?J with this setup a proton cut-off energy of 8.5?MeV was achieved, which is a factor of 1.8 higher compared to a flat foil target of the same thickness. While a boost of the acceleration process by additionally injected electrons was observed for sophisticated targets at high-energy laser-systems before, our studies reveal that the process can be utilized over at least two orders of magnitude in intensity and is therefore suitable for a large number of nowadays existing laser-systems. We retrieved a cut-off energy of about 6.5?MeV of proton energy per Joule of incident laser energy, which is a noticeable enhancement with respect to previous results employing this mechanism. The approach presented here has the advantage of using structure-wise simple targets and being sustainable for numerous applications and high repetition rate demands at the same time.

SUBMITTER: Kaymak V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6904736 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature