Ultrashort PW laser pulse interaction with target and ion acceleration

Short pulse laser interaction with micro-structured targets: simulations of laser absorption and ion acceleration

The interaction of an ultrashort intense laser pulse with thin foil targets is accompanied by the acceleration of ions from the target surface. To make this ion source suitable for application, it is of particular importance to increase the efficiency of laser energy transformation into accelerated ions and the maximum ion energy. This can be achieved by using a thin foil target with a microsco...

Ion acceleration from relativistic laser nano-target interaction

Laser-ion acceleration has been of particular interest over the last decade for fundamental as well as applied sciences. Remarkable progress has been made in realizing laser-driven accelerators that are cheap and very compact compared with conventional rf-accelerators. Proton and ion beams have been produced with particle energies of up to 50MeV and several MeV/u, respectively, with outstanding...

Shock ion acceleration by an ultrashort circularly polarized laser pulse via relativistic transparency in an exploded target.

We investigated ion acceleration by an electrostatic shock in an exploded target irradiated by an ultrashort, circularly polarized laser pulse by means of one- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We discovered that the laser field penetrating via relativistic transparency (RT) rapidly heated the upstream electron plasma to enable the formation of a high-speed electrostatic shock...

Electron Acceleration Using an Ultrashort Ultraintense Laser Pulse

Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction

Ion acceleration driven by superintense laser pulses is attracting an impressive and steadily increasing effort. Motivations can be found in the applicative potential and in the perspective to investigate novel regimesasavailable laser intensitieswill be increasing.Experimentshavedemonstrated, over awide range of laser and target parameters, the generation of multi-MeV proton and ion beams with...