Enhanced Proton Acceleration by an Ultrashort Laser Interaction with Structured Dynamic Plasma Targets

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates enhanced proton acceleration using ultrashort laser pulses interacting with structured dynamic plasma targets, achieving higher energies and yields than traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme involving snow targets and pre-pulses that significantly improves proton acceleration efficiency and energy.

Findings

Protons above 21MeV were achieved with a 5TW laser.

Simulations suggest energies above 150MeV are possible with 100TW lasers.

Structured targets and pre-pulses enhance acceleration performance.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a notably enhanced acceleration of protons to high energy by relatively modest ultrashort laser pulses and structured dynamical plasma targets. Realized by special deposition of snow targets on sapphire substrates and using carefully planned pre-pulses, high proton yield emitted in a narrow solid angle with energy above 21MeV were detected from a 5TW laser. Our simulations predict that using the proposed scheme protons can be accelerated to energies above 150MeV by 100TW laser systems.