Laser acceleration of highly energetic carbon ions using a double-layer target composed of slightly underdense plasma and ultrathin foil

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel laser-driven method to accelerate carbon ions to high energies using a double-layer target with underdense plasma and ultrathin foil, advancing heavy ion acceleration techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a new double-layer target scheme combining underdense plasma and ultrathin foil for efficient heavy ion acceleration with femtosecond lasers.

Findings

Carbon ions reached energies up to 48 MeV per nucleon.

The acceleration involves radiation pressure and sheath field acceleration.

The method is suitable for high-repetition-rate heavy ion generation.

Abstract

We report the experimental generation of highly energetic carbon ions up to 48 MeV per nucleon by shooting double-layer targets composed of well-controlled slightly underdense plasma (SUP) and ultrathin foils with ultra-intense femtosecond laser pulses. Particle-in-cell simulations reveal that carbon ions residing in the ultrathin foils undergo radiation pressure acceleration and long-time sheath field acceleration in sequence due to the existence of the SUP in front of the foils. Such an acceleration scheme is especially suited for heavy ion acceleration with femtosecond laser pulses. The breakthrough of heavy ion energy up to multi-tens of MeV/u at high-repetition-rate would be able to trigger significant advances in nuclear physics, high energy density physics, and medical physics.