Enhanced Laser Proton Acceleration with Ultra-High Laser Contrast

We present results of our experimental campaign on laser proton acceleration, in which liquid crystal film targets of tunable thickness were irradiated with plasma mirror cleaned laser pulses. The data show a significant increase in proton cut-off energy up to 25 MeV for a target thickness of 10 nm as compared to the few- micron scale reference for this target configuration yielding roughly 12 MeV.