A scheme for controlling the direction of energetic proton beam driven by intense laser pulse is proposed. Simulations show that a precisely directed and collimated proton bunch can be produced by a sub-picosecond laser pulse interacting with a target consisting of a thin solid-density disk foil with a solenoid coil attached to its back at the desired angle. It is found that two partially overlapping sheath fields are induced. As a result, the accelerated protons are directed parallel to the axis of the solenoid, and their spread angle is also reduced by the overlapping sheath fields. The proton properties can thus be controlled by manipulating the solenoid parameters. Such highly directional and collimated energetic protons are useful in the high-energy-density as well as medical sciences.
This paper describes the first experimental demonstration of the guiding of a relativistic electron beam in a solid target using two co-linear, relativistically intense, picosecond laser pulses. The first pulse creates a magnetic field which guides the higher current fast electron beam generated by the second pulse. The effects of intensity ratio, delay, total energy and intrinsic pre-pulse are examined. Thermal and K{alpha} imaging showed reduced emission size, increased peak emission and increased total emission at delays of 4 - 6 ps, an intensity ratio of 10 : 1 (second:first) and a total energy of 186 J. In comparison to a single, high contrast shot, the inferred fast electron divergence is reduced by 2.7 times, while the fast electron current density is increased by a factor of 1.8. The enhancements are reproduced with modelling and are shown to be due to the self-generation of magnetic fields. Such a scheme could be of considerable benefit to fast ignition inertial fusion.
We report on experimental investigations of proton acceleration from solid foils irradiated with PW-class laser-pulses, where highest proton cut-off energies were achieved for temporal pulse parameters that varied significantly from those of an ideally Fourier transform limited (FTL) pulse. Controlled spectral phase modulation of the driver laser by means of an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter enabled us to manipulate the temporal shape of the last picoseconds around the main pulse and to study the effect on proton acceleration from thin foil targets. The results show that applying positive third order dispersion values to short pulses is favourable for proton acceleration and can lead to maximum energies of 70 MeV in target normal direction at 18 J laser energy for thin plastic foils, significantly enhancing the maximum energy compared to ideally compressed FTL pulses. The paper further proves the robustness and applicability of this enhancement effect for the use of different target materials and thicknesses as well as laser energy and temporal intensity contrast settings. We demonstrate that application relevant proton beam quality was reliably achieved over many months of operation with appropriate control of spectral phase and temporal contrast conditions using a state-of-the-art high-repetition rate PW laser system.
By using multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation, we present a new regime of stable proton beam acceleration which takes place when a two-specie shaped foil is illuminated by a circularly polarized laser pulse. It is observed that the lighter protons are nearly-instantaneously separated from the heavier carbon ions due to the charge-to-mass ratio difference. The heavy-ions layer extensively expands in space and acts to buffer the proton layer from the Rayleigh-Taylor-like (RT) instability that would have otherwise degraded the proton beam acceleration. A simple three-interface model is formulated to qualitatively explain the stabilization of the light-ions acceleration. Due to the absence of the RT-like instability, the produced high quality mono-energetic proton bunch can be well maintained even after the laser-foil interaction concludes.
Production of the huge longitudinal magnetic fields by using an ultraintense laser pulse irradiating a solenoid target is considered. Through three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, it is shown that the longitudinal magnetic field up to ten kilotesla can be observed in the ultraintense laser-solenoid target interactions. The finding is associated with both fast and return electron currents in the solenoid target. The huge longitudinal magnetic field is of interest for a number of important applications, which include controlling the divergence of laser-driven energetic particles for medical treatment, fast-ignition in inertial fusion, etc., as an example, the well focused and confined directional electron beams are realized by using the solenoid target.
We propose a scheme to overcome the great challenge of polarization loss in spin-polarized ion acceleration. When a petawatt laser pulse penetrates through a compound plasma target consisting of a double layer slab and prepolarized hydrogen halide gas, a strong forward moving quasistatic longitudinal electric field is constructed by the self-generated laser-driven plasma. This field with a varying drift velocity efficiently boosts the prepolarized protons via a two-stage coherent acceleration process. Its merit is not only achieving a highly energetic beam but also eliminating the undesired polarization loss of the accelerated protons. We study the proton dynamics via Hamiltonian analyses, specifically deriving the threshold of triggering the two-stage coherent acceleration. To confirm the theoretical predictions, we perform three-dimensional PIC simulations, where unprecedented proton beams with energy approximating half GeV and polarization ratio $sim$ 94% are obtained.
K. Jiang
,C. T. Zhou
,T. W. Huang
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(2018)
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"Direction and divergence control of laser-driven energetic proton beam using a disk-solenoid target"
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Ke Jiang
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