Multi-Cascade Proton Acceleration by Superintense Laser Pulse in the Regime of Relativistically Induced Slab Transparency

TL;DR

This paper proposes a multi-cascade proton acceleration regime using superintense laser pulses and structured targets, achieving quasi-monoenergetic proton beams up to hundreds of MeV with minimal energy spread.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-cascade acceleration method leveraging relativistically induced slab transparency with structured targets for enhanced proton energies.

Findings

Proposed multi-cascade acceleration regime with structured targets.

Achieved proton energies up to hundreds of MeV.

Produced quasi-monoenergetic proton beams with few percent energy spread.

Abstract

A regime of multi-cascade proton acceleration in the interaction of $10^{21}-10^{22}$ W/cm$^2$ laser pulse with a structured target is proposed. The regime is based on the electron charge displacement under the action of laser ponderomotive force and on the effect of relativistically induced slab transparency which allows to realize idea of multi-cascade acceleration. It is shown that a target comprising several properly spaced apart thin foils can optimize the acceleration process and give at the output quasi-monoenergetic beams of protons with energies up to hundreds of MeV with energy spread of just few percent.