Enhanced ion acceleration from transparency-driven foils demonstrated at two ultraintense laser facilities

Nicholas P. Dover; Tim Ziegler; Stefan Assenbaum; Constantin Bernert; tefan BockS; Florian-Emanuel Brack; Thomas E. Cowan; Emma J. Ditter; Marco Garten; Lennart Gaus; Ilja Goethel; George S. Hicks; Hiromitsu Kiriyama; Thomas Kluge; James K. Koga; Akira Kon; Kotaro Kondo; Stephan Kraft; Florian Kroll; Hazel F. Lowe; Josefine Metzkes-Ng; Tatsuhiko Miyatake; Zulfikar Najmudin; Thomas Püschel; Martin Rehwald; Marvin Reimold; Hironao Sakaki; Hans-Peter Schlenvoigt; Keiichiro Shiokawa; Marvin E. P. Umlandt; Ulrich Schramm; Karl Zeil; Mamiko Nishiuchi

doi:10.1038/s41377-023-01083-9

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Enhanced ion acceleration from transparency-driven foils demonstrated at two ultraintense laser facilities

Original Articles

- Enhanced ion acceleration from transparency-driven foils demonstrated at two ultraintense laser facilities
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 12, Issue 4, Pages: 593-604(2023)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Kansai Photon Science Institute, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, 8-1-7 Umemidai, Kizugawa, Kyoto 619-0215, Japan
  2.The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
  3.Helmholtz-Zentrum DresdenRossendorf, 01328 Dresden, Germany
  4.Technische Universität Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany
  5.Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, 6-1, Kasuga-Koen, Kasuga, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan
- Author bio：
  
  Karl Zeil (k.zeil@hzdr.de)
  Mamiko Nishiuchi (nishiuchi.mamiko@qst.go.jp)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-023-01083-9
  CLC：
- Published：30 April 2023，
  
  Published Online：13 March 2023，
  
  Received：30 June 2022，
  
  Revised：16 January 2023，
  
  Accepted：30 January 2023
Scan for full text
Dover, N. P.et al. Enhanced ion acceleration from transparencydriven foils demonstrated at two ultraintense laser facilities.Light: Science & Applications,12, 593-604 (2023).
DOI：

Dover, N. P.et al. Enhanced ion acceleration from transparencydriven foils demonstrated at two ultraintense laser facilities.Light: Science & Applications,12, 593-604 (2023). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-023-01083-9.

摘要

Abstract

Laser-driven ion sources are a rapidly developing technology producing high energy

high peak current beams. Their suitability for applications

such as compact medical accelerators

motivates development of robust acceleration schemes using widely available repetitive ultraintense femtosecond lasers. These applications not only require high beam energy

but also place demanding requirements on the source stability and controllability. This can be seriously affected by the laser temporal contrast

precluding the replication of ion acceleration performance on independent laser systems with otherwise similar parameters. Here

we present the experimental generation of

60 MeV protons and

30 MeV u

−1

carbon ions from sub-micrometre thickness Formvar foils irradiated with laser intensities

Wcm

. Ions are accelerated by an extreme localised space charge field

$$\gtrsim$$

30 TVm

−1

over a million times higher than used in conventional accelerators. The field is formed by a rapid expulsion of electrons from the target bulk due to relativistically induced transparency

in which relativistic corrections to the refractive index enables laser transmission through normally opaque plasma. We replicate the mechanism on two different laser facilities and show that the optimum target thickness decreases with improved laser contrast due to reduced pre-expansion. Our demonstration that energetic ions can be accelerated by this mechanism at different contrast levels relaxes laser requirements and indicates interaction parameters for realising application-specific beam delivery.

关键词

Keywords

references

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