Related papers: High current ionic flows via ultra-fast lasers for…
Ultrahigh-intensity lasers (10$^{18}$-10$^{22}$W/cm$^{2}$) have opened up new perspectives in many fields of research and application [1-5]. By irradiating a thin foil, an ultrahigh accelerating field (10$^{12}$ V/m) can be formed and…
We propose an innovative fast-cycling accelerator complex conceived and designed to exploit at best the properties of accelerated ion beams for hadrontherapy. A cyclinac is composed by a cyclotron, which can be used also for other valuable…
An unprecedented increase of kinetic energy of laser accelerated heavy ions is demonstrated. Ultra thin gold foils have been irradiated by an ultra short laser pulse at an intensity of $6\times 10^{19}$ W/cm$^{2}$. Highly charged gold ions…
A novel regime is proposed where, employing linearly polarized laser pulses at intensities $10^{21}\textrm{Wcm}^{-2}$ as two order of magnitude lower than earlier predicted [T. Esirkepov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 175003 (2004)], ions are…
Longitudinal ion acceleration from high-intensity (I ~ 10^20 Wcm^-2) laser interactions with helium gas jet targets (n_e ~ 0.04 n_c) have been observed. The ion beam has a maximum energy for He^2+ of approximately 40 MeV and was directional…
In this work, we investigate the application of the plasma shutters for heavy ion acceleration driven by a high-intensity laser pulse. We use particle-in-cell (PIC) and hydrodynamic simulations. The laser pulse, transmitted through the…
Direct laser acceleration of ions by short frequency-chirped laser pulses is investigated theoretically. We demonstrate that intense beams of ions with a kinetic energy broadening of about 1 % can be generated. The chirping of the laser…
The generation of compact, high-energy ion beams is one of the most promising applications of intense laser-matter interactions, but the control of the beam spectral quality remains an outstanding challenge. We show that in radiation…
Theoretical investigations show that linearly and radially polarized multiterawatt and petawatt laser beams, focused to subwavelength waist radii, can directly accelerate protons and carbon nuclei, over micron-size distances, to the…
We present results of energetic laser-ion acceleration from a tailored, near solid density gas target. Colliding hydrodynamic shocks compress a pure hydrogen gas jet into a 70 {\mu}m thick target prior to the arrival of the ultra-intense…
Recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of accelerating electrons to MeV energies in ambient air using tightly focused laser configurations. In this article, we explore possible strategies to control and optimize the resulting…
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…
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…
An all-optical centimeter-scale laser-plasma positron accelerator is modeled to produce quasi-monoenergetic beams with tunable ultra-relativistic energies. A new principle elucidated here describes the trapping of divergent positrons that…
We propose new nanotargets as nano-layered flat-top cone targets to be used for future laser-ion acceleration experiments at ELI-NP. We study their behaviour at the interaction with an ultra-high intensity laser pulse by performing…
Our proposed ion acceleration scheme, micronozzle acceleration (MNA), generates proton beams with extremely high kinetic energies on the giga-electron-volt (GeV) order. The underlying physics and performance of MNA are studied with…
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…
Radio-frequency linear accelerators are used as injectors for synchrotrons and as stand-alone accelerators for the production of intense particle beams, thanks to their ability to accelerate high beam currents at high repetition rates. This…
Low-energy fusion of heavy ions is a fascinating coupling-assisted quantum tunnelling problem, whose understanding is crucial for advancing the synthesis of new elements and isotopes. Quantum dynamical coupled-channels calculations of…
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…