Effects of front surface plasma expansion on proton acceleration in ultraintense laser irradiation of foil targets

The properties of beams of high energy protons accelerated during ultraintense, picosecond laser-irradiation of thin foil targets are investigated as a function of preplasma expansion at the target front surface. Significant enhancement in the maximum proton energy and laser-to-proton energy convers...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: McKenna, P., Carroll, D.C., Lundh, O., Nurnberg, F., Markey, K., Bandyopadhyay, S., Batani, D., Evans, R.G., Jafer, R., Kar, S., Neely, D., Pepler, D., Quinn, M.N., Redaelli, R., Roth, M., Wahlstrom, C.-G., Yuan, X.H., Zepf, M.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Energy conversion
Laser beams
Laser-plasma interaction
laser-proton acceleration
Optical propagation
Optical pulses
Particle beams
Plasma accelerators
plasma expansion
Plasma properties
Protons
Surface emitting lasers
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Summary:The properties of beams of high energy protons accelerated during ultraintense, picosecond laser-irradiation of thin foil targets are investigated as a function of preplasma expansion at the target front surface. Significant enhancement in the maximum proton energy and laser-to-proton energy conversion efficiency is observed at optimum preplasma density gradients, due to self-focusing of the incident laser pulse. For very long preplasma expansion, the propagating laser pulse is observed to filament, resulting in highly uniform proton beams, but with reduced flux and maximum energy.
ISSN:0730-9244
2576-7208
DOI:10.1109/PLASMA.2009.5227320