Abstract
Enhanced proton acceleration to high energy by relatively modest ultrashort laser pulses and structured dynamic plasma snow targets was demonstrated experimentally. High proton yield emitted to narrow solid angle with energies of up 25 MeV were detected from interaction of a 5 TW laser with snow targets. The high yield was attributed to a carefully planned prepulse and microstructured snow targets. We studied experimentally the minimal energy requirements for the adequate prepulse and we are using PIC simulations to study the dynamics of acceleration process. Based on our simulations, we predict that using the proposed scheme protons can be accelerated to energies above 150 MeV by 100 TW laser systems.
Highlights
Proton acceleration by the interaction of an ultra high intensity laser beam with matter is very important for basic science and has several wide prospective applications, including cancer treatment, Appl
The above accelerating schemes are optimized for interaction between the high intensity main laser pulse and a cold solid-density target, and are strongly degraded as the main laser pulse interacts with a pre-heated or ionized target caused by a prepulse
We further explore the role of the dynamic plasma generated by the prepulse in our approach to laser-induced proton acceleration based on snow structured targets and moderate power
Summary
Proton acceleration by the interaction of an ultra high intensity laser beam with matter is very important for basic science and has several wide prospective applications, including cancer treatment, Appl. We have demonstrated an alternative approach to laser-based proton acceleration by using a moderate power laser system and micro-structured snow targets [14,15,16]. Using structured snow targets and relatively low contrast ratio this scaling was demonstrated for significantly lower laser powers than the traditional schemes [14,18]. We further explore the role of the dynamic plasma generated by the prepulse in our approach to laser-induced proton acceleration based on snow structured targets and moderate power (
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