Abstract
The dynamics of ion acceleration in tightly focused laser beams is investigated in relativistic simulations. Studies are performed to find the optimal parameters which maximize the energy gain, beam quality, and flux. The exit ionic kinetic energy and its uncertainty are improved and the number of accelerated particles is increased by orders of magnitude over our earlier results, especially when working with a longer laser wavelength. Laser beams of powers of 0.1--10 petawatts and focused to subwavelength spot radii are shown to directly accelerate protons and bare nuclei of helium, carbon, and oxygen from a few to several hundred MeV/nucleon. Variation of the volume of the initial ionic ensemble, as well as the introduction of a pulse shape on the laser fields, have been investigated and are shown to influence the exit particle kinetic energies only slightly.
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