Abstract

AbstractAn ion beam has the unique feature of being able to deposit its main energy inside a human body to kill cancer cells or inside material. However, conventional ion accelerators tend to be huge in size and cost. In this paper, a future intense-laser ion accelerator is discussed to make the laser-based ion accelerator compact and controllable. The issues in the laser ion accelerator include the energy efficiency from the laser to the ions, the ion beam collimation, the ion energy spectrum control, the ion beam bunching, and the ion particle energy control. In the study, each component is designed to control the ion beam quality by particle simulations. The energy efficiency from the laser to ions is improved by using a solid target with a fine sub-wavelength structure or a near-critical-density gas plasma. The ion beam collimation is performed by holes behind the solid target or a multi-layered solid target. The control of the ion energy spectrum and the ion particle energy, and the ion beam bunching are successfully realized by a multi-stage laser–target interaction.

Highlights

  • By chirped pulse amplification, a higher laser intensity has been realized, and high-intensity short-pulse lasers are available for applications

  • The energy of ions, which are accelerated in an interaction between an intense laser pulse and a gas target, is over a few tens of MeV[11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25]

  • Ions have been accelerated in an interaction of an intense laser pulse with a solid target or a near-critical density plasma[11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25]

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Summary

Introduction

A higher laser intensity has been realized, and high-intensity short-pulse lasers are available for applications. The present paper shows a new concept for a future laser ion accelerator, which should have an ion source, ion collimator, ion beam buncher, and ion post acceleration devices. Based on the laser ion accelerator components, the ion particle energy and the ion energy spectrum are controlled, and a future compact laser ion accelerator could be designed and realized for ion cancer therapy or for ion material treatment. Such a compact laser ion accelerator would provide a future daily-use ion accelerator. When the inductive field speed coincides with the ion beam speed, the ions are continuously accelerated

A concept for a future laser ion accelerator
Proton beam source by a structured solid foil target
Proton beam source by an underdense gas plasma target
Ion beam collimation by a structured solid target
Ion beam bunching device
Multi-stage ion acceleration
Findings
Discussions

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