Related papers: Ion acceleration in "dragging field" of a light-pr…

We propose a novel mechanism for ion acceleration based on the guided motion of electrons from a thin target. The electron motion is locked to the moving nodes of a standing wave formed by a chirped laser pulse reflected from a mirror…

Laser plasma interaction with micro-engineered targets at relativistic intensities has been greatly promoted by recent progress in the high contrast lasers and the manufacture of advanced micro- and nano-structures. This opens new…

Laser-driven ion acceleration provides ultra-short, high-charge, low-emittance beams, which are desirable for a wide range of high-impact applications. Yet after decades of research, a significant increase in maximum ion energy is still…

A novel approach for positron injection and acceleration in laser driven plasma wakefield is proposed. A theoretical model is developed and confirmed through PIC simulation. One ring-shaped beam and one co-axially propagating Gaussian beam…

Laser-plasma accelerators offer a compact means of producing high-energy electron beams, but their performance is fundamentally limited by dephasing between the accelerated electrons and the plasma wave. To overcome this limitation, we…

Photon engineering can be exploited to control the nonlinear evolution of the drive pulse in a laser-plasma accelerator (LPA), offering new avenues to tailor electron beam phase space on a femtosecond time scale. One promising option is to…

Plasma-Based Acceleration (PBA) has emerged as a promising approach to achieve ultra-high gradient particle acceleration. While extensive PBA studies have been conducted using laser, electron, and proton drivers, significant challenges…

Scaling laws of ion acceleration in ultrathin foils driven by radiation pressure of intense laser pulses are investigated by theoretical analysis and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Considering the instabilities are inevitable…

The `Laser-hybrid Accelerator for Radiobiological Applications', LhARA, is conceived as a novel, uniquely-flexible facility dedicated to the study of radiobiology. The technologies demonstrated in LhARA, which have wide application, will be…

We address the problem of energy dispersion of radiation pressure accelerated (RPA) ion beams emerging from a thin (solid) target. Two different acceleration schemes, namely phase-stable acceleration and multi-stage acceleration, are…

The interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with solids is largely affected by the plasma gradient at the vacuum-solid interface, which modifies the absorption and ultimately, controls the energy distribution function of heated electrons.…

The propagation of ultra intense laser pulses through matter is connected with the generation of strong moving magnetic fields in the propagation channel as well as the formation of a thin ion filament along the axis of the channel. Upon…

In a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA), an intense laser pulse excites a plasma wave that traps and accelerates electrons to relativistic energies. When the pulse overlaps the accelerated electrons, it can enhance the energy gain through…

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…

This paper overviews experimental and numerical results on acceleration of narrow energy spread ion beams by an electrostatic collisionless shockwave driven by 1 um (Omega EP) and 10 um (UCLA Neptune Laboratory) lasers in near critical…

Efficient laser ion acceleration requires high laser intensities, which can only be obtained by tightly focusing laser radiation. In the radiation pressure acceleration regime, where the tightly focused laser driver leads to the appearance…

We demonstrate a scheme for enhanced proton acceleration from near-critical-density targets by splitting a laser pulse into a linearly and a circularly polarized laser pulse. The combination of two laser pulses generates a shock wave as…

Laser-plasma accelerators represent a promising technology for future compact accelerating systems, enabling the acceleration of tens of pC to above $1\,$GeV over just a few centimeters. Nonetheless, these devices currently lack the…

We briefly report on the recently proposed [G. Fiore, R. Fedele, U. de Angelis, Phys. Plasmas 21 (2014), 113105], [G. Fiore, S. De Nicola, arXiv:1509.04656] electron acceleration mechanism named "slingshot effect": under suitable conditions…

We study numerically the mechanisms of proton acceleration in gas-foil targets driven by an ultraintense femtosecond laser pulse. The target consists of a near-critical-density hydrogen gas layer of a few tens of microns attached to a solid…