Generation of giga-electron-volt proton beams by micronozzle acceleration

TL;DR

This paper introduces micronozzle acceleration, a novel laser-driven ion acceleration method that produces proton beams with energies exceeding one giga-electron-volt, using 2D particle-in-cell simulations.

Contribution

The study proposes and analyzes a new micronozzle acceleration scheme for generating ultra-high-energy proton beams, demonstrating its effectiveness through simulations.

Findings

Proton energies exceeding 1 GeV achieved at 10^22 W/cm^2 laser intensity.

Micronozzle structure significantly enhances proton acceleration.

Simulation results validate the potential of MNA for high-energy proton generation.

Abstract

Our proposed ion acceleration scheme, micronozzle acceleration (MNA), generates proton beams with extremely high kinetic energies on the giga-electron-volt (GeV) order. The underlying physics and performance of MNA are studied with two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. In MNA targets, a micron-sized hydrogen rod is embedded inside a hollow micronozzle. Subsequent illumination of the target along the symmetric axis by an ultraintense ultrashort laser pulse forms a strong electrostatic field with a long lifetime and an extensive space around the downstream tail of the nozzle. The electric field significantly amplifies the kinetic energies of the accelerated protons, and > GeV protons are generated at an applied laser intensity of 10^22 W/cm^2 .