Related papers: Efficient ion acceleration by collective laser-dri…
Direct laser acceleration (DLA) offers a compact source of high-charge, energetic electrons for generating secondary radiation or neutrons. While DLA in high-density plasma optimizes the energy transfer from a laser pulse to electrons, it…
Multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are used to study the generation of electrostatic shocks in plasma and the reflection of background ions to produce high-quality and high-energy ion beams. Electrostatic shocks are driven by…
Generation of highly collimated monoenergetic relativistic ion beams is one of the most challenging and promising areas in ultra-intense laser-matter interactions because of the numerous scientific and technological applications that…
It is shown that the energy of protons accelerated in laser-matter interaction experiments may be significantly increased through the process of splitting the incoming laser pulse into multiple interaction stages of equal intensity. From a…
We report the first experiment investigating ion acceleration and neutron generation irradiating thin plastic targets (CH2) and deuterated plastic targets (CD2) of thickness ranging from 30nm to 160nm using the 4PW (0.1 Hz) laser at CoReLS…
We examine the impact of the ion dynamics on laser-driven electron acceleration in an initially empty channel irradiated by an ultra-high intensity laser pulse with $I > 10^{22}$ W/cm$^2$. The negative charge of the accelerated electrons…
We consider the acceleration of electrons in vacuum by means of the circularly-polirized electromagnetic wave, propagating along a magnetic field. We show that the electron energy growth, when using ultra-short and ultra-intense laser…
The upcoming $10-100$ petawatt laser facilities may deliver laser pulses with unprecedented intensity of $10^{22}-10^{25}\rm~W cm^{-2}$, which can trigger various nonlinear quantum electrodynamic processes in plasma. For effective laser…
The laser-driven acceleration of high quality proton beams from a double-layer target, comprised of a high-Z ion layer and a thin disk of hydrogen, is investigated with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations in the case of oblique…
We study the onset of electron heating in intense laser-solid interactions and its impact on the spectral quality of radiation pressure accelerated ions in both hole boring and light sail regimes. Two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell…
A regime of multi-cascade proton acceleration in the interaction of $10^{21}-10^{22}$ W/cm$^2$ laser pulse with a structured target is proposed. The regime is based on the electron charge displacement under the action of laser ponderomotive…
We present an experimental demonstration of the efficient acceleration of electrons beyond 60 MeV using micro-channel plasma targets. We employed a high-contrast, 2.5 J, 32 fs short pulse laser interacting with a 5 \mu m inner diameter, 300…
Understanding the target dynamics during its interaction with a relativistic ultrashort laser pulse is a challenging fundamental multi-physics problem involving at least atomic and solid-state physics, plasma physics, and laser physics.…
Due to the high computational cost of 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, lower-dimensional (2D or 1D) simulations are frequently used in their place. Our work shows that when modeling high-intensity laser ion acceleration, simulation…
Using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we further investigate the electron and ion acceleration from femtosecond laser-plasma peeler scheme which was proposed in our recent paper (Shen et al 2021 Phys. Rev. X 11 041002). In…
An experimental investigation of collisionless shock ion acceleration is presented using a multicomponent plasma and a high-intensity picosecond duration laser pulse. Protons are the only accelerated ions when a near-critical-density plasma…
Feasibility of ionization injection for Direct Laser Acceleration (DLA) of electrons up to hundreds of MeV was studied analytically. Criteria for effective injection determining range of background and in-channel plasma parameters, laser…
Laser-plasma acceleration produces ultrashort, high-brightness ion beams reaching tens of MeV, yet their large divergence and broad energy spread require dedicated capture elements for beam transport. Using laser-accelerated protons from…
Laser-driven ion accelerators have the advantages of compact size, high density, and short bunch duration over conventional accelerators. Nevertheless, it is still challenging to generate ion beams with quasi-monoenergetic peak and low…
We demonstrate that electrons can be efficiently accelerated to high energy in spatially non-uniform, intense laser fields. Laser non-uniformities occur when a perfect plane wave reflects off a randomly perturbed surface. By solving for…