Effects of density profile and multi-species target on laser-heated thermal-pressure-driven shock wave acceleration

Abstract

The shock wave acceleration of ions driven by laser-heated thermal pressure is studied through one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation and analysis. The generation of high-energy mono-energetic protons in recent experiments (D. Haberberger et al., 2012 Nat. Phys. 8 95) is attributed to the use of exponentially decaying density profile of the plasma target. It does not only keep the shock velocity stable but also suppresses the normal target normal sheath acceleration. The effects of target composition are also examined, where a similar collective velocity of all ion species is demonstrated. The results also give some reference to future experiments of producing energetic heavy ions.

Creation and characterization of free-standing cryogenic targets for laser-driven ion acceleration

“…Some models and simulations for laser-driven ion acceleration mechanisms predict the highest ion energies per nucleon for the highest charge-tomass ratio, and thus protons. [10][11][12] Some of these even indicate that the presence of heavier nuclei lessens the efficiency of the acceleration of lighter ions, thus making a pure hydrogen target the most desirable.…”

Dynamic study of compressed electron layer driven by linearly polarized laser

“…[1,2] High-energy ions can be accelerated by the intense laser plasma interaction, which can be applied in fast ignition for initial confinement fusion, [3,4] medical therapy, [5,6] proton imaging, [7] etc. Generally, radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] may be used to get a monoenergetic ion beam, because the ponderomotive force is stable. There are two electric field peaks due to the two components of the ponderomotive force of the linearly polarized (LP) laser.…”

Simulation of the Quasi-Monoenergetic Protons Generation by Parallel Laser Pulses Interaction with Foils

“…Compared to the existing radiation and particle-beam methods, a proton beam has the important advantage that the corresponding Bragg peak is at the end of the stopping path, so that its energy can be deposited precisely. Several schemes for ion acceleration by using intense laser pulses have been investigated, [6][7][8][9]11,13,14] including target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA), [6,13,14] breakout after-burner (BOA), [7] radiation pressure acceleration (RPA), [8] shock acceleration, [9,10] etc. [11,12] It has been suggested that a circularly-polarized (CP) laser pulse interacting with an ultrathin foil can produce via RPA quasi-monoenergetic GeV ion beams.…”