Acceleration of high charge ion beams with achromatic divergence by petawatt laser pulses
Sven Steinke, Jianhui Bin, Jungwon Park, Qing Ji, K. Nakamura, A. J. Gonsalves, S. S. Bulanov, Maxence Thévenet, Csaba Tóth, Jean-Luc Vay, C. B. Schroeder, C. G. R. Geddes, E. Esarey, T. Schenkel, Wim Leemans
Abstract
We present a study of laser-ion acceleration, where an increased laser spot size leads to sheath field geometries that accelerate ion beams of narrow and achromatic divergence at unprecedented charge densities, resulting from the high aspect ratio of the laser spot size to the acceleration distance. Matching the laser pulse length to the transverse laser spot size mitigated laser sweeping across the target front side and optimized the acceleration, with maximum energies deviating significantly from a linear intensity scaling.
Topics & Concepts
LaserAccelerationAchromatic lensOpticsPhysicsBeam parameter productBeam divergenceIonDivergence (linguistics)Acceleration voltageAtomic physicsMaterials scienceLaser beam qualityLaser beamsNuclear physicsElectronClassical mechanicsCathode rayLinguisticsQuantum mechanicsPhilosophyLaser-Plasma Interactions and DiagnosticsLaser-induced spectroscopy and plasmaLaser-Matter Interactions and Applications