Increased efficiency of ion acceleration by using femtosecond laser pulses at higher harmonic frequency

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that using higher harmonic femtosecond laser pulses significantly enhances ion acceleration efficiency by inducing relativistic transparency, leading to higher maximum proton energies and increased numbers of energetic protons.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation analysis showing how higher harmonic frequencies improve ion acceleration by enabling relativistic transparency at lower laser intensities.

Findings

Maximum proton energy doubled at third harmonic frequency.

Number of high-energy protons increased significantly.

Relativistic transparency occurs at lower intensities with higher harmonics.

Abstract

The influence of laser frequency on laser-driven ion acceleration is investigated by means of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. When ultrashort intense laser pulse at higher harmonic frequency irradiates a thin solid foil, the target may become relativistically transparent for significantly lower laser pulse intensity compared to irradiation at fundamental laser frequency. The relativistically induced transparency results in an enhanced heating of hot electrons as well as increased maximum energies of accelerated ions and their numbers. Our simulation results have shown the increase of maximum proton energy and of the number of high-energy protons by a factor of 2 after the interaction of an ultrashort laser pulse of maximum intensity $7 \times 10^{21}~\rm{W/cm^2}$ with a fully ionized plastic foil of realistic density and of optimal thickness between $100~\rm{nm}$ and $200~\rm{nm}$ when switching from the fundamental frequency to the third harmonics.