Ballistic Focusing of Polyenergetic Protons Driven by Petawatt Laser Pulses

Journal Article · Fri Jun 03 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.225003· OSTI ID:21538388

Kar, S; Borghesi, M; Zepf, M ^[1]; Markey, K ^[1]; Carroll, D C; McKenna, P; Quinn, M N ^[2]; Neely, D ^[3]

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1. Centre for Plasma Physics, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, BT7 1NN (United Kingdom)
2. SUPA, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0NG (United Kingdom)
3. Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, OX11 0QX (United Kingdom)

By using a thick (250 {mu}m) target with 350 {mu}m radius of curvature, the intense proton beam driven by a petawatt laser is focused at a distance of {approx}1 mm from the target for all detectable energies up to {approx}25 MeV. The thickness of the foil facilitates beam focusing as it suppresses the dynamic evolution of the beam divergence caused by peaked electron flux distribution at the target rear side. In addition, reduction in inherent beam divergence due to the target thickness relaxes the curvature requirement for short-range focusing. Energy resolved mapping of the proton beam trajectories from mesh radiographs infers the focusing and the data agree with a simple geometrical modeling based on ballistic beam propagation.

• OSTI ID: 21538388
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 22; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.225003; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
DISTANCE
DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRONS
FOCUSING
FOILS
LASERS
MEV RANGE 10-100
PETAWATT POWER RANGE
PROTON BEAMS
PROTONS
PULSES
REDUCTION
SIMULATION
THICKNESS
TRAJECTORIES
BARYONS
BEAMS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
DIMENSIONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ENERGY RANGE
FERMIONS
HADRONS
LEPTONS
MEV RANGE
NUCLEON BEAMS
NUCLEONS
PARTICLE BEAMS
POWER RANGE