Improving proton acceleration with circularly polarized intense laser pulse by radial confinement with heavy ions


Improving proton acceleration with circularly polarized intense laser pulse by radial confinement with heavy ions

Huang, L. G.; Lei, A. L.; Bin, J. H.; Bai, Y.; Yu, W.; Yu, M. Y.; Cowan, T. E.

Energetic proton acceleration from interaction of intense short circularly polarized laser pulse with a sandwich target is investigated using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. The sandwich target consists of a hydrogen-plasma layer surrounded by carbon-plasma layers. It is found that the transverse electric fields generated at the plasma layer interfaces efficiently confine the longitudinally accelerated protons to within the hydrogen-plasma layer such that they are collimated and have smaller energy spread compared with a pure proton layer target. The proton energy spectrum can be controlled by adjusting the target parameters, in particular the width of the hydrogen-plasma layer and the density of the carbon-plasma layer.

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-13845