Energetic electron acceleration processes in a plasma hollow tube irradiated by an ultraintense laser pulse are investigated. It is found that the longitudinal component of the laser field is much enhanced when a linear polarized Gaussian laser pulse propagates through the plasma tube. This longitudinal field is of π/2 phase shift relative to the transverse electric field and has a π phase interval between its upper and lower parts. The electrons in the plasma tube are first pulled out by the transverse electric field and then trapped by the longitudinal electric field. The trapped electrons can further be accelerated to higher energy in the presence of the longitudinal electric field. This acceleration mechanism is clearly illustrated by both particle-in-cell simulations and single particle modelings.

Dimensional effects in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) of protons are considered. As the spatial divergence of the laseraccelerated hot sheath electrons and the resulting space-charge electric field on the target backside depend on the spatial dimension, the maximum energy of the accelerated protons obtained from three-dimensional (3D) simulations is usually much less that from two-dimensional (2D) simulations. By closely examining the TNSA of protons in 2D and 3D PIC simulations, we deduce an empirical ratio between the maximum proton energies obtained from the 2D and 3D simulations. This ratio may be useful for estimating the maximum proton energy in realistic (3D) TNSA from the results of the corresponding 2D simulation. It is also shown that the scaling law also applies to TNSA from structured targets.

Filamentation dynamics of relativistic optical vortex beams (OVBs) propagating in underdense plasma is investigated. It is shown that OVBs with finite orbital angular momentum (OAM) exhibit much more robust propagation behavior than the standard Gaussian beam. In fact, the growth rate of the azimuthal modulational instability decreases rapidly with increase of the OVB topological charge. Thus, relativistic OVBs can maintain their profiles for significantly longer distances in an underdense plasma before filamentation occurs. It is also found that an OVB would then break up into regular filament patterns due to conservation of the OAM, in contrast to a Gaussian laser beam, which in general experiences random filamentation.

It is proposed that guided and collimated proton acceleration by intense lasers can be achieved using an advanced target—a thin foil followed by a hollow plasma channel. For the advanced target, the laser-accelerated hot electrons can be confined in the hollow channel at the foil rear side, which leads to the formation of transversely localized, Gaussian-distributed sheath electric field and resultantly guiding of proton acceleration. Further, due to the hot electron flow along the channel wall, a strong focusing transverse electric field is induced, taking the place of the original defocusing one driven by hot electron pressure in the case of a purely thin foil target, which results in collimation of proton beams. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that collimated proton beams with energy about 20 MeV and nearly half-reduced divergence of 26° are produced at laser intensities 1020 W/cm2 by using the advanced target.

Laser driven proton acceleration is proposed to be greatly enhanced by using a cone-tube target, which can be easily manufactured by current 3D-print technology. It is observed that energetic electron bunches are generated along the tube and accelerated to a much higher temperature by the combination of ponderomotive force and longitudinal electric field which is induced by the optical confinement of the laser field. As a result, a localized and enhanced sheath field is produced at the rear of the target and the maximum proton energy is about three-fold increased based on the two-dimentional particle-in-cell simulation results. It is demonstrated that by employing this advanced target scheme, the scaling of the proton energy versus the laser intensity is much beyond the normal target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) case.