Abstract
Intense laser-produced plasmas generate bright, ultrashort bursts of accelerated ions. Reducing the required laser intensity and increasing the repetition rate of the laser to generate high energy ions is important, and mesoscopic particle targets are an attractive option to address this issue. Newer experimental strategies to measure ion energies and their angular distribution are needed in studies of such systems. In this paper, we outline a method to simultaneously measure these quantities using a single CR39 film. Although CR-39 detectors are known for ion imaging or spectroscopy, combining these specially for lower ion energies and applications to low-intensity laser experiments is not common. The paradigm chosen in our study is to consider the spatial distribution of nuclear tracks on a CR-39 sheet, while simultaneously separating them by their track diameter. Our method achieves an energy resolution of about 100 keV and a spatial resolution of tens of micrometers. In addition, ion species other than protons, i.e., carbon and oxygen, can also be imaged in an energy-resolved manner.
Highlights
Intense laser pulses have been used to create hot, dense plasmas with relativistic electron temperatures
For the CR-39 detectors to be used for ion imaging, their dependence on nuclear track diameters must be characterized for ion energies for the species of relevance
We find that error due to the measurement of the track diameter is much smaller than the statistical variation in the track diameter seen for a given ion energy
Summary
Intense laser pulses have been used to create hot, dense plasmas with relativistic electron temperatures. Mass limited solid density targets of several micrometers size, in the form of microdroplets or aerosol jets, can be routinely generated Their capability to be generated at high repetition rates and to generate hotter plasmas makes them attractive to use with laser pulses of moderate intensity. Studies of laser plasma interactions using such lasers aim to develop high brightness and low-emittance secondary sources of electrons, x-rays, and ions Whereas such lasers may not be intense enough to generate multi-million electron volt ions, their capability to generate compact, high brightness, ultrashort bursts of lower energy ions (
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