Radiation pressure acceleration of protons from structured thin-foil targets

TL;DR

This paper investigates radiation pressure acceleration of protons using structured thin-foil targets with surface and density modulations, aiming to enhance ion energy and reduce energy spread by suppressing instabilities and considering radiation reaction effects.

Contribution

It introduces the use of structured and density modulated targets in RPA to suppress instabilities and improve ion acceleration, including the effects of radiation reaction.

Findings

Structured targets help suppress transverse instabilities.

Density modulation and radiation reaction effects enable higher ion energies.

Achieved GeV-range ion energies with lower energy spread.

Abstract

The process of radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) of ions is investigated with the aim of suppressing the Rayleigh-Taylor like transverse instabilities in laser-foil interaction. This is achieved by imposing surface and density modulations on the target surface. We also study the efficacy of RPA of ions from density modulated and structured targets in the radiation dominated regime where the radiation reaction effects are important. We show that the use of density modulated and structured targets and the radiation reaction effects can help in achieving the twin goals of high ion energy (in GeV range) and lower energy spread.