Generation of high quality ion beams through the stable radiation pressure acceleration of the near critical density target**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11365020, 11475026, 11565022, and 11547304), the Science and Technology Program of Gansu Province of China (Grant No. 1606RJZA090), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Higher Education Institutions of Gansu Province of

Abstract

In order to generate high quality ion beams through the stable radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) of the near critical density (NCD) target, we propose a new type of target where an ultra-thin high density (HD) layer is attached to the front surface of an NCD target, which has a preferable self-supporting property in the RPA experiments than the ultra-thin foil target. It is found that in one-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation, by the block of the HD layer in the new target, there emerges the hole-boring process rather than propagation in the NCD layer when the intense laser pulse impinges on this target. As a result, a typical RPA structure that the compressed electron layer overlaps the ion layer as a whole is formed and a high quality ion beam is obtained, e.g., a circularly polarized laser pulse with normalized amplitude impinges on this new target and a 1.2 GeV monoenergetic ion beam is generated through the RPA of the NCD layer. Similar results are also found in the two-dimensional PIC simulation.