Accelerated protons with energies up to 70 MeV based on the optimized SG-II Peta-watt laser facility
Honghai An, Wei Wang, Jun Xiong, Chen Wang, X. Pan, Xiaoping Ouyang, Shang‐Da Jiang, Z. Y. Xie, Peirou Wang, Yilin Yao, Nicolle Hua, Yu Wang, Zishang Jiang, Qian Xiao, Fuhong Ding, Yingchao Wan, Xiangdong Liu, Rui Wang, Zhiheng Fang, Pengfei Yang, Yuwei Jiang, Pingze Zhang, Beibei Zhu, Jianwen Sun, B. Qiao, Anle Lei, Jiwei Zhu
Abstract
Abstract The target backsheath field acceleration mechanism is one of the main mechanisms of laser-driven proton acceleration (LDPA) and strongly depends on the comprehensive performance of the ultrashort ultra-intense lasers used as the driving sources. The successful use of the SG-II Peta-watt (SG-II PW) laser facility for LDPA and its applications in radiographic diagnoses have been manifested by the good performance of the SG-II PW facility. Recently, the SG-II PW laser facility has undergone extensive maintenance and a comprehensive technical upgrade in terms of the seed source, laser contrast and terminal focus. LDPA experiments were performed using the maintained SG-II PW laser beam, and the highest cutoff energy of the proton beam was obviously increased. Accordingly, a double-film target structure was used, and the maximum cutoff energy of the proton beam was up to 70 MeV. These results demonstrate that the comprehensive performance of the SG-II PW laser facility was improved significantly.