Hot-electron recirculation in ultraintense laser pulse interactions with thin foils
- High Power Excimer Laser Laboratory, China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing 102413 (China) and Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China)
A model, called the Step Model, is proposed to describe hot-electron recirculation. A formula to estimate electron density at the rear side sheath is described. With a fixed initial hot-electron density for some target thicknesses, the results from the Step Model are compared with several experiments. The influences of laser pulse absorption efficiency, laser pulse duration, the opening angle of hot-electrons, hot-electron recirculation, and target thickness on the ion acceleration are discussed. When the target thickness is far less than the laser focus radius, the initial electron density will be proportional to the laser pulse absorption efficiency, and the angular effect and the thickness effect can both be ignored. For any target thickness, the maximum ion velocity accelerated by the rear side sheath can be calculated using the Step Model. As an application to some experiments, the Step Model provides a half-analytic method to achieve the dependence of the laser pulse absorption efficiency on target thickness and the influence of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) duration on the laser absorption efficiency.
- OSTI ID:
- 21062037
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 14; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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