Efficient acceleration of dense plasma bunches for fusion-related applications in the LICPA accelerator

Abstract

The results of particle-in-cell simulations of acceleration of carbon ions and a heavy (0.5 μg) gold micro-projectile in the laser-induced cavity pressure acceleration (LICPA) scheme at the conditions relevant to fast ignition of deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion are presented. It is shown that the LICPA accelerator employing a picosecond 100 kJ laser driver can produce quasi-monoenergetic carbon ion beams of parameters significantly higher than those achieved in the conventional radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) scheme and the beam parameters meet the ion fast ignition requirements fairly well. The LICPA accelerator can also efficiently accelerate the heavy micro-projectile to high velocities (> 5 × 108 cm s−1) required for the impact ignition of DT fusion and the acceleration efficiency for LICPA is almost an order of magnitude higher than that for RPA.