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The interaction of ultrashort, high intensity laser pulses with thin foil targets leads to ion acceleration on the target rear surface. To make this ion source useful for applications, it is important to optimize the transfer of energy from…
Laser-driven ion acceleration from nanostructured targets offers a promising route to compact, high-energy ion sources. In this work, we demonstrate through particle-in-cell simulations that rectangular nanoring targets significantly…
It is known that rare-gas or metal clusters absorb incident laser energy very efficiently. However, due to the intricate dependencies on all the laser and cluster parameters it is difficult to predict under which circumstances ionization…
We investigate by particle-in-cell simulations in two and three dimensions the laser-plasma interaction and the proton acceleration in multilayer targets where a low density "near-critical" layer of a few micron thickness is added on the…
Optimizing laser and plasma parameters is crucial for enhancing accelerated proton energy in laser-driven proton acceleration with finite laser energy for applications such as cancer therapy. Tight focusing plays a significant role in…
The interaction of micro- and nano-structured target surfaces with high-power laser pulses is being widely investigated for its unprecedented absorption efficiency. We have developed vertically aligned metallic micro-pillar arrays for…
Laser-plasma proton acceleration was investigated in the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) regime using a novel gas-foil target. The target is designed for reaching higher laser intensity at the foil plane owing to relativistic…
A new, maximum proton energy, $e$, scaling law with the laser pulse energy, $E_L$ has been derived from the results of 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Utilizing numerical modelling, protons are accelerated during interactions of the…
High-quality proton beams generated by laser-plasma interactions are of significant interest for applications ranging from tumor therapy to fast ignition in inertial confinement fusion. However, simultaneously achieving high energy coupling…
We theoretically investigate high energy, collimated proton beam with three dimensional particle in cell simulations of ultrashort petawatt laser interaction with cryogenic hydrogen target of various shapes. Here we show that under…
We report on an experimental study of proton acceleration by intense laser irradiation of micrometric bar targets, whose dimensions are transversely immersed in the laser focal volume and are longitudinally smaller than half its wavelength.…
In the effort of achieving high-energetic ion beams from the interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with a plasma, volumetric acceleration mechanisms beyond Target Normal Sheath Acceleration have gained attention. A relativisticly intense…
When a circularly polarized laser pulse interacts with a foil target, there are three stages: pre-hole-boring, hole-boring and the light sail acceleration. We study the electron and ion dynamics in the first stage and find the minimum foil…
Particle acceleration using ultraintense, ultrashort laser pulses is one of the most attractive topics in relativistic laser-plasma research. We report proton/ion acceleration in the intensity range of 5x1019 W/cm2 to 3.3x1020 W/cm2 by…
The development of ultra-intense laser-based sources of high energy ions is an important goal, with a variety of potential applications. One of the barriers to achieving this goal is the need to maximize the conversion efficiency from laser…
It is well known that Brunel's vacuum heating mechanism is operative for laser energy absorption when the target plasma density rises sharply. For non-relativistic laser intensities and planar targets it is also necessary that the laser…
Micro- or nano-structured targets are advantageous in enhancing and manipulating laser-proton acceleration, due to the increased absorption of laser energy and onset of direct laser acceleration for high-energy electrons. Here, we…
In a previous Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 123401 (2006)] we have shown by means of three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and a simple rigid-sphere model that nonlinear resonance absorption is the dominant collisionless absorption…
We present a novel laser based ion acceleration scheme, where a petawatt circularly polarized laser pulse is shot on an ultra-thin (nano-scale) double-layer target. Our scheme allows the production of high-quality light ion beams with both…
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…