2009/06/12 by Min Chen, Tong-Pu Yu, A. Pukhov +3
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Acceleration #Atomic physics #Beam (structure) #Collimated light #Electron #FOIL method #Ion #Laser #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Laser-induced spectroscopy and plasma #Materials science #Nuclear physics #Optics #Particle acceleration #Particle-in-cell #Physics #Proton #Pulse (music) #Pulse duration #physics.acc-ph #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/12/4/045004
11 pages, 9 figures
arxiv created 2009/06/12 · openalex publication_date 2010/04/30 · arxiv updated 2015/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
When a circularly polarized laser pulse interacts with a foil target, there are three stages: pre-hole-boring, hole-boring and light sail acceleration. We study the electron and ion dynamics in the first stage and find the minimum foil thickness requirement for a given laser intensity. Based on this analysis, we propose using a shaped foil for ion acceleration, whose thickness varies transversely to match the laser intensity. Then, the target evolves into three regions: the acceleration, transparency and deformation regions. In the acceleration region, the target can be uniformly accelerated producing a mono-energetic and spatially collimated ion beam. Detailed numerical simulations are performed to check the feasibility and robustness of this scheme, such as the influence of shape factors and surface roughness. A GeV mono-energetic proton beam is observed in three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations when a laser pulse with a focus intensity of 10 22 W cm −2 is used. The energy conversion efficiency of the laser pulse to the accelerated proton beam with the simulation parameters is more than 23%.