English

Geometric scaling of laser-driven proton focusing from hemispherical foils

Plasma Physics 2026-02-24 v2

Abstract

We systematically characterize the focusing behavior of laser-driven proton beams from hemispherical targets of various diameters using mesh radiography. The proton focal location is inferred to be near the geometrical center for the smallest tested hemisphere (Ψ=Dhemi/DLaser=6.1\Psi=D_{hemi}/D_{Laser}=6.1). However, larger hemispheres (Ψ=14.6\Psi=14.6) degrade the focusing behavior and behave more like flat foils with focal location significantly inside the hemisphere. We also infer a tight virtual focus of 9±3 μ9\pm3~\mum through a mesh transition analysis.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.15062,
  title  = {Geometric scaling of laser-driven proton focusing from hemispherical foils},
  author = {Jesse Griff-McMahon and Xavier Vaisseau and William Fox and Kirill Lezhnin and Krish Bhutwala and Ryan Nedbailo and Valeria Opsina-Bohórquez and Timo Karpowski and Pravesh K. Patel and Sophia Malko},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.15062},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

9 pages, 9 figures