Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme
Laser-driven ion acceleration has been an active research area in the past two decades with the prospects of designing novel and compact ion accelerators. Many potential applications in science and industry require high-quality, energetic ion beams with low divergence and narrow energy spread. Inten...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2019-01-01
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| Series: | New Journal of Physics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab4454 |
| _version_ | 1797749964213846016 |
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| author | J Li P Forestier-Colleoni M Bailly-Grandvaux C McGuffey A V Arefiev S S Bulanov J Peebles C Krauland A E Hussein T Batson J C Fernandez S Palaniyappan R P Johnson G M Petrov F N Beg |
| author_facet | J Li P Forestier-Colleoni M Bailly-Grandvaux C McGuffey A V Arefiev S S Bulanov J Peebles C Krauland A E Hussein T Batson J C Fernandez S Palaniyappan R P Johnson G M Petrov F N Beg |
| author_sort | J Li |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Laser-driven ion acceleration has been an active research area in the past two decades with the prospects of designing novel and compact ion accelerators. Many potential applications in science and industry require high-quality, energetic ion beams with low divergence and narrow energy spread. Intense laser ion acceleration research strives to meet these challenges and may provide high charge state beams, with some successes for carbon and lighter ions. Here we demonstrate the generation of well collimated, quasi-monoenergetic titanium ions with energies ∼145 and 180 MeV in experiments using the high-contrast (<10 ^−9 ) and high-intensity ( $6\times {10}^{20}\,{\rm{W}}\,{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$ ) Trident laser and ultra-thin (∼100 nm) titanium foil targets. Numerical simulations show that the foils become transparent to the laser pulses, undergoing relativistically induced transparency (RIT), resulting in a two-stage acceleration process which lasts until ∼2 ps after the onset of RIT. Such long acceleration time in the self-generated electric fields in the expanding plasma enables the formation of the quasi-monoenergetic peaks. This work contributes to the better understanding of the acceleration of heavier ions in the RIT regime, towards the development of next generation laser-based ion accelerators for various applications. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:26:08Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1588667bed9b4eefb629a988eced59d2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1367-2630 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:26:08Z |
| publishDate | 2019-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | New Journal of Physics |
| spelling | doaj.art-1588667bed9b4eefb629a988eced59d22023-08-08T15:41:08ZengIOP PublishingNew Journal of Physics1367-26302019-01-01211010300510.1088/1367-2630/ab4454Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration schemeJ Li0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9247-0760P Forestier-Colleoni1M Bailly-Grandvaux2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7529-4013C McGuffey3A V Arefiev4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0597-0976S S Bulanov5J Peebles6C Krauland7A E Hussein8https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9676-4862T Batson9J C Fernandez10S Palaniyappan11R P Johnson12G M Petrov13F N Beg14https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0391-8944Center for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaCenter for Ultrafast Optical Science, Univ. of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States of AmericaCenter for Ultrafast Optical Science, Univ. of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States of AmericaLos Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,NM 87545, United States of AmericaLos Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,NM 87545, United States of AmericaLos Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,NM 87545, United States of AmericaNaval Research Laboratory, Plasma Physics Division, Washington, DC 20375, United States of AmericaCenter for Energy Research, Univ. California San Diego , La Jolla, CA 92093-0417, United States of AmericaLaser-driven ion acceleration has been an active research area in the past two decades with the prospects of designing novel and compact ion accelerators. Many potential applications in science and industry require high-quality, energetic ion beams with low divergence and narrow energy spread. Intense laser ion acceleration research strives to meet these challenges and may provide high charge state beams, with some successes for carbon and lighter ions. Here we demonstrate the generation of well collimated, quasi-monoenergetic titanium ions with energies ∼145 and 180 MeV in experiments using the high-contrast (<10 ^−9 ) and high-intensity ( $6\times {10}^{20}\,{\rm{W}}\,{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$ ) Trident laser and ultra-thin (∼100 nm) titanium foil targets. Numerical simulations show that the foils become transparent to the laser pulses, undergoing relativistically induced transparency (RIT), resulting in a two-stage acceleration process which lasts until ∼2 ps after the onset of RIT. Such long acceleration time in the self-generated electric fields in the expanding plasma enables the formation of the quasi-monoenergetic peaks. This work contributes to the better understanding of the acceleration of heavier ions in the RIT regime, towards the development of next generation laser-based ion accelerators for various applications.https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab4454laser–plasma interactionsparticle accelerationion beam generation |
| spellingShingle | J Li P Forestier-Colleoni M Bailly-Grandvaux C McGuffey A V Arefiev S S Bulanov J Peebles C Krauland A E Hussein T Batson J C Fernandez S Palaniyappan R P Johnson G M Petrov F N Beg Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme New Journal of Physics laser–plasma interactions particle acceleration ion beam generation |
| title | Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme |
| title_full | Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme |
| title_fullStr | Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme |
| title_full_unstemmed | Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme |
| title_short | Laser-driven acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic, near-collimated titanium ions via a transparency-enhanced acceleration scheme |
| title_sort | laser driven acceleration of quasi monoenergetic near collimated titanium ions via a transparency enhanced acceleration scheme |
| topic | laser–plasma interactions particle acceleration ion beam generation |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab4454 |
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