Related papers: Surface Plasmon-Driven Electron and Proton Acceler…
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…
We demonstrate in this research the quasi-monoenergetic electron and proton acceleration through three dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of short petawatt circular polarized laser pulse interactions with near critical density…
The efficient generation of surface plasmons from free space optical waves is still an open problem in the field. Here we present a methodology and optimized design for a grating coupler. The photo-excitation of surface plasmons at an…
In laser-solid interactions, electrons may be generated and subsequently accelerated to energies of the order-of-magnitude of the ponderomotive limit, with the underlying process dominated by direct laser acceleration. Breaking this limit,…
Compact acceleration of a tightly collimated relativistic electron beam with high charge from a laser-plasma interaction has many unique applications. However, currently the well-known schemes, including laser wakefield acceleration from…
We report on the experimental studies of laser driven ion acceleration from double-layer target where a near-critical density target with a few-micron thickness is coated in front of a nanometer thin diamond-like carbon foil. A significant…
We propose a hybrid laser-driven ion acceleration scheme using a combination target of a solid foil and a density-tailored background plasma. In the first stage, a sub-relativistic proton beam can be generated by the radiation pressure…
Ion acceleration using a laser pulse irradiating a thin disk target is examined using three-dimensional and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. A laser pulse of $620$ TW, with an intensity of $5\times 10^{21}$ W/cm$^{2}$ and a…
A new electron acceleration mechanism is identified that develops when a relativistically intense laser irradiates the wedge of an over-dense plasma. This induces a diffracted electromagnetic wave with a significant longitudinal electric…
A new scheme of proton acceleration from a laser-driven near-critical-density plasma is proposed. Plasma with a tailored density profile allows a two-stage acceleration of protons. The protons are pre-accelerated in the laser-driven…
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…
The accelerating gradients in conventional linear accelerators are currently limited to 100 MV per meter. Plasma-based accelerators have the ability to sustain accelerating gradients which are several orders of magnitude greater than that…
This dissertation explores the interaction between high-intensity lasers and plasmas to accelerate electrons and produce radiation via experimental and computational efforts. The laser pulses used in this dissertation have ultrashort…
Recent experiments (R. A. Baragiola and C. A. Dukes, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 2547 (1996)) with slow ions incident at grazing angle on metal surfaces have shown that bulk plasmons are excited under conditions where the ions do not…
Ultrafast excitation of non-equilibrium carriers under intense pulses offer unique opportunities for controlling optical properties of semiconductor materials. In this work, we propose a scheme for ultrafast generation of surface plasmon…
Direct laser acceleration has proven to be an efficient source of high-charge electron bunches and high brilliance X-rays. However, an analytical description of the acceleration in the interaction with varying plasma density targets is…
The paper reports the results of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of proton beam acceleration at the interactions of a 130 fs laser pulse of intensity from the range of 10^21-10^23 W/cm^2, predicted for the Extreme Light…
While laser-plasma accelerators have demonstrated a strong potential in the acceleration of electrons up to giga-electronvolt energies, few experimental tools for studying the acceleration physics have been developed. In this paper, we…
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…
A new type of proton acceleration stemming from large-scale gradients, low-density targets, irradiated by an intense near-infrared laser is observed. The produced protons are characterized by high-energies (with a broad spectrum), are…