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Title: Two-stage laser acceleration of high quality protons using a tailored density plasma

Abstract

A new scheme for a laser-driven proton accelerator based on a sharply tailored near-critical-density plasma target is proposed. The designed plasma profile allows for the laser channeling of the dense plasma, which triggers a two-stage acceleration of protons—first accelerated by the laser acting as a snowplow in plasma, and then by the collisionless shock launched from the sharp density downramp. Thanks to laser channeling in the near-critical plasma, the formed shock is radially small and collimated. This allows it to generate a significant space-charge field, which acts as a monochromator, defocusing the lower energy protons while the highest ones remain collimated. Our theoretical and numerical analysis demonstrates production of high-energy proton beams with few tens of percent energy spread, few degrees divergence angle and charge up to few nC. With a PW-class ultrashort laser this scheme predicts the generation of such high quality proton beams with energies up to several hundreds of MeV.

Authors:
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1493510
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1544122
Grant/Contract Number:  
NA0003842
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Published Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review Accelerators and Beams
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Physical Review Accelerators and Beams Journal Volume: 22 Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9888
Publisher:
American Physical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY

Citation Formats

Wan, Y., Andriyash, I. A., Hua, J. F., Pai, C. -H., Lu, W., Mori, W. B., Joshi, C., and Malka, V. Two-stage laser acceleration of high quality protons using a tailored density plasma. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.22.021301.
Wan, Y., Andriyash, I. A., Hua, J. F., Pai, C. -H., Lu, W., Mori, W. B., Joshi, C., & Malka, V. Two-stage laser acceleration of high quality protons using a tailored density plasma. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.22.021301
Wan, Y., Andriyash, I. A., Hua, J. F., Pai, C. -H., Lu, W., Mori, W. B., Joshi, C., and Malka, V. 2019. "Two-stage laser acceleration of high quality protons using a tailored density plasma". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.22.021301.
@article{osti_1493510,
title = {Two-stage laser acceleration of high quality protons using a tailored density plasma},
author = {Wan, Y. and Andriyash, I. A. and Hua, J. F. and Pai, C. -H. and Lu, W. and Mori, W. B. and Joshi, C. and Malka, V.},
abstractNote = {A new scheme for a laser-driven proton accelerator based on a sharply tailored near-critical-density plasma target is proposed. The designed plasma profile allows for the laser channeling of the dense plasma, which triggers a two-stage acceleration of protons—first accelerated by the laser acting as a snowplow in plasma, and then by the collisionless shock launched from the sharp density downramp. Thanks to laser channeling in the near-critical plasma, the formed shock is radially small and collimated. This allows it to generate a significant space-charge field, which acts as a monochromator, defocusing the lower energy protons while the highest ones remain collimated. Our theoretical and numerical analysis demonstrates production of high-energy proton beams with few tens of percent energy spread, few degrees divergence angle and charge up to few nC. With a PW-class ultrashort laser this scheme predicts the generation of such high quality proton beams with energies up to several hundreds of MeV.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.22.021301},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1493510}, journal = {Physical Review Accelerators and Beams},
issn = {2469-9888},
number = 2,
volume = 22,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Feb 05 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Tue Feb 05 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.22.021301

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 3 works
Citation information provided by
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Works referencing / citing this record:

Spectrum tailoring of low charge-to-mass ion beam by the triple-stage acceleration mechanism
journal, April 2019


Laser-Plasma Accelerated Protons: Energy Increase in Gas-Mixtures Using High Mass Number Atomic Species
journal, August 2019