Quasi-monoenergetic Ion Research Articles

Quasimonoenergetic ion bunches from exploding microstructured targets

An analytic model is proposed for generating bunches of light ions up to relativistic energies via Coulomb explosion (CE) of symmetric microstructured targets in plane, cylindrical, and spherical geometries, and the conditions under which CE can exist in a single-flow regime are derived. The time evolution of the mean velocity, density distribution, and energy spectra for accelerated ions is studied, and the CE-driven quasimonoenergetic light ions from bilayered microstructured targets are reported.

Two-stage laser acceleration of ions

A scheme is proposed for producing a quasi-monoenergetic ion bunch by irradiating a foil with two subsequent ultrashort laser pulses—a prepulse followed by a stronger main pulse. Results are presented from numerical simulations that illustrate the scheme and determine the space-time and energy characteristics of the accelerated ions.

Multistaged acceleration of ions by circularly polarized laser pulse: Monoenergetic ion beam generation

A multiple-staged ion acceleration mechanism in the interaction of a circularly polarized laser pulse with a solid target is studied by one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. The ions are accelerated from rest to several MeV monoenergetically at the front surface of the target. After all the plasma ions are accelerated, the acceleration process is repeated on the resulting monoenergetic ions. Under suitable conditions multiple repetitions can be realized and a high-energy quasi-monoenergetic ion beam can be obtained.

Laser plasma acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic beams of light multicharged ions

Experimental results on the spectra of residual impurity ions from a plasma created on the surface of a tungsten target that is irradiated by a femtosecond laser pulse and is subjected to preliminary pulsed laser cleaning are reported. It is shown that deep modulation corresponding to the formation of a quasi-monoenergetic ion beam appears in the energy spectra of protons and light multicharged carbon ions in this case. The position of a “dip” at the scale of velocities closely correlates with the position of the front of heavier ions.

Quasimonoenergetic Deuteron Bursts Produced by Ultraintense Laser Pulses

We report on the generation and laser acceleration of bunches of energetic deuterons with a small energy spread at about 2 MeV. This quasimonoenergetic peak within the ion energy spectrum was observed when heavy-water microdroplets were irradiated with ultrashort laser pulses of about 40 fs duration and high (10(-8)) temporal contrast, at an intensity of 10(19) W/cm(2). The results can be explained by a simple physical model related to spatial separation of two ion species within a finite-volume target. The production of quasimonoenergetic ions is a long-standing goal in laser-particle acceleration; it could have diverse applications such as in medicine or in the development of future compact ion accelerators.

Laser acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic MeV ion beams

Acceleration of particles by intense laser-plasma interactions represents a rapidly evolving field of interest, as highlighted by the recent demonstration of laser-driven relativistic beams of monoenergetic electrons. Ultrahigh-intensity lasers can produce accelerating fields of 10 TV m(-1) (1 TV = 10(12) V), surpassing those in conventional accelerators by six orders of magnitude. Laser-driven ions with energies of several MeV per nucleon have also been produced. Such ion beams exhibit unprecedented characteristics--short pulse lengths, high currents and low transverse emittance--but their exponential energy spectra have almost 100% energy spread. This large energy spread, which is a consequence of the experimental conditions used to date, remains the biggest impediment to the wider use of this technology. Here we report the production of quasi-monoenergetic laser-driven C5+ ions with a vastly reduced energy spread of 17%. The ions have a mean energy of 3 MeV per nucleon (full-width at half-maximum approximately 0.5 MeV per nucleon) and a longitudinal emittance of less than 2 x 10(-6) eV s for pulse durations shorter than 1 ps. Such laser-driven, high-current, quasi-monoenergetic ion sources may enable significant advances in the development of compact MeV ion accelerators, new diagnostics, medical physics, inertial confinement fusion and fast ignition.