Enhanced proton acceleration by an ultrashort laser interaction with structured dynamic plasma targets

Area of Science:

• Plasma Physics
• Laser-driven particle acceleration
• Nuclear Fusion

Background:

• Proton acceleration is crucial for applications like cancer therapy and fusion energy.
• Conventional methods often require large, complex, and expensive laser facilities.
• Developing compact and efficient laser-driven proton acceleration techniques is a key research area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate enhanced proton acceleration using ultrashort laser pulses and structured dynamical plasma targets.
• To investigate the effect of specialized target preparation and laser prepulses on proton energy and yield.
• To establish a pathway for achieving higher proton energies with scalable laser systems.

Main Methods:

• Experimental setup involving a 5 TW ultrashort laser system.
• Utilizing specially deposited snow targets on sapphire substrates.
• Employing carefully planned laser prepulses to structure the dynamical plasma target.
• Detection of high-energy protons using diagnostics measuring yield and energy spectra.

Main Results:

• Experimentally achieved significant proton acceleration to energies exceeding 21 MeV.
• Observed high proton yields emitted in a narrow solid angle.
• Simulations predicted acceleration of protons to over 150 MeV with 100 TW laser systems.

Conclusions:

• The proposed scheme of using structured dynamical plasma targets with ultrashort laser pulses is effective for enhanced proton acceleration.
• This approach offers a promising route towards compact and efficient high-energy proton sources.
• Further development with higher power lasers could unlock MeV-level proton acceleration for various applications.