Target normal sheath acceleration of foil ions by laser-trapped hot electrons from a long subcritical-density preplasma
- Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai 201800 (China)
- College of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073 (China)
- National Laboratory for Parallel and Distributed Processing, School of Computer Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073 (China)
- Department of Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095 (United States)
In a long subcritical density plasma, an ultrashort ultraintense laser pulse can self-organize into a fast but sub-relativistic propagating structure consisting of the modulated laser light and a large number of trapped electrons from the plasma. Upon impact of the structure with a solid foil target placed in the latter, the remaining laser light is reflected, but the dense and hot trapped electrons pass through the foil, together with the impact-generated target-frontsurface electrons to form a dense hot electron cloud at the back of the target suitable for enhancing target normal sheath acceleration of the target-backsurface ions. The accelerated ions are well collimated and of high charge and energy densities, with peak energies a full order of magnitude higher than that from target normal sheath acceleration without the subcritical density plasma. In the latter case, the space-charge field accelerating the ions is limited since they are formed only by the target-frontsurface electrons during the very short instant of laser reflection.
- OSTI ID:
- 22407933
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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