LOW-EMITTANCE MONOENERGETIC ELECTRON AND ION BEAMS FROM ULTRA-INTENSE LASER-SOLID INTERACTIONS

Abstract

Recent experiments at the LLNL Petawatt Laser have demonstrated the generation of intense, high energy beams of electrons and ions from the interaction of ultra-intense laser light with solid targets. Focused laser intensities as high as 6 x 10{sup 20} W/cm{sup 2} are achieved, at which point the quiver energies of the target electrons extend to {approx}10 MeV. In this new, fully relativistic regime of laser-plasma interactions, nuclear processes become important and nuclear techniques are required to diagnose the high-energy particle production. In recent experiments we have observed electrons accelerated to 100 MeV, up to 60 MeV brehmsstrahlung generation, photo-nuclear fission and positron-electron pair creation. We also have observed monoenergetic jets of electrons having sufficiently small emittance to be interesting as a laser-accelerated beam, if the production mechanism could be understood and controlled. The huge flux of multi-MeV ponderomotively accelerated electrons produced in the laser-solid interaction is also observed to accelerate contaminant ions from the rear surface of the solid target up to 50 MeV. We describe spectroscopic measurements which reveal intense monoenergetic beam features in the proton energy spectrum. The total spectrum contains >10{sup 13} protons, while the monoenergetic beam pulses contain {approx}1 nC of protons, and exhibits amore » longitudinal and transverse emittance smaller than conventional RF proton accelerator beams.« less