Abstract
The idea of using a gas-mixture comprising atoms with a high mass number in order to increase proton energies in laser induced plasma acceleration at critical density is investigated by means of 2D PIC (Particle-In-Cell) simulations. Comparing and discussing the case of a pure hydrogen plasma and that of a plasma containing higher mass number species with a small percentage of hydrogen, we demonstrate that the mixture enhances the energies of the accelerated protons. We also show that using a gas-mixture introduces the possibility of using the densities ratio in order to change the relative acceleration of the species.
Highlights
After the advent of the Chirped-Pulse-Amplification (CPA) method [1], the growing interest in high power femtosecond laser systems has led to experiments aimed at using laser-matter interaction for particle acceleration
Over the last few decades, laser proton acceleration was mainly performed in over-critical plasmas using solid targets that are understandably locally destroyed during the final phase of the process [7]
Electrostatic field derived from the space charge distribution
Summary
After the advent of the Chirped-Pulse-Amplification (CPA) method [1], the growing interest in high power femtosecond laser systems has led to experiments aimed at using laser-matter interaction for particle acceleration. The interest in a laser-based proton accelerator covers different fields, from the most demanding hadron-therapy [24,25] extensively studied in literature and requiring high-energy protons (250 MeV), to the proton-induced-x-ray-emission (PIXE) technique [26] In this case, a proton bunch irradiates a sample to induce X-ray fluorescence [27] in a localized region of the sample, the X-rays are imaged using dedicated pin-hole cameras techniques [28,29,30] which are able to image X-ray, including in extreme conditions such as those met in laser-plasmas interactions. Different projects and research centers base their activity on the concept of plasma-acceleration, and we should mention, in particular, the case of ELI [40] and some of the acceleration infrastructures within it [41,42]
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