Abstract
AbstractThe efficient transfer of angular orbital momentum from circularly polarized laser pulses into ions of solid density targets is investigated with different geometries using particle-in-cell simulations. The detailed electron and ion dynamics presented focus upon the energy and momentum conversion efficiency. It is found that the momentum transfer is more efficient for spiral targets and the maximum value is obtained when the spiral step is equal to twice the laser wavelength. This study reveals that the angular momentum distribution of ions strongly depends up on the initial target shape and density.
Highlights
The efficient transfer of orbital angular momentum (OAM) from laser pulses to particles becomes possible with sufficient light intensity
There are three possible ways of inducing ion rotation in an overdense plasma and are illustrated schematically in Figure 1: using a circularly polarized (CP) light interacting with a flat foil, so that the axis of propagation is in the plane of the target; a simple linearly polarized (LP) pulse and a thin spiral foil (Yin et al, 2014) or using a spiral-shaped laser pulse (Seryi, 2014)
It has been shown that in the case of flat mass-limited target and CP pulse, only a few percent of the protons contribute to the final OAM measured in the simulations
Summary
The efficient transfer of orbital angular momentum (OAM) from laser pulses to particles becomes possible with sufficient light intensity. Laser pulse duration is an important parameter because the electron heating process results in an omnidirectional plasma expansion. If the plasma density is near critical, the partial removal of electrons often results in a strong Coulomb explosion in the region used to generate rotating ions. These effects can ruin and decrease the total OAM of the target plasma; shorter pulses are preferable for these investigations. We concentrate on very short pulses interacting with mass limited plasma slabs and the dependence of final OAM on the laser intensity is investigated
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