Related papers: A "lighthouse" laser-driven staged proton accelera…
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…
Laser-driven ion acceleration is an attractive technique for compact high-energy ion sources. Currently, among various physical and technical issues to be solved, the boost of ion energy and the reduction of energy spread represent the key…
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…
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…
Laser acceleration promises innovation in particle beam therapy of cancer where an ultra-compact accelerator system for cancer beam therapy can become affordable to a broad range of patients. This is not feasible without the introduction of…
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…
Proton acceleration by using a 620-TW, 18-J laser pulse of peak intensity of $5\times 10^{21}$ W/cm$^{2}$ irradiating a disk target is examined using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is shown that protons are accelerated…
The intrinsic constraints in the amplitude of the accelerating fields sustainable by radio-frequency accelerators demand for the pursuit of alternative and more compact acceleration schemes. Among these, plasma-based accelerators are…
We propose a scheme to overcome the great challenge of polarization loss in spin-polarized ion acceleration. When a petawatt laser pulse penetrates through a compound plasma target consisting of a double layer slab and prepolarized hydrogen…
Table-top laser-plasma ion accelerators seldom achieve narrow energy spreads, and never without serious compromises in efficiency, particle yield, etc. Using massive computer simulations, we identify a self-organizing scheme that exploits…
Compact, stable, and versatile laser-driven ion sources hold great promise for applications ranging from medicine to materials science and fundamental physics. While single-shot sources have demonstrated favorable beam properties, including…
Plasma wakefield accelerators are capable of sustaining gigavolt-per-centimeter accelerating fields, surpassing the electric breakdown threshold in state-of-the-art accelerator modules by 3-4 orders of magnitude. Beam-driven wakefields…
A short overview of laser-plasma acceleration of ions is presented. The focus is on some recent experimental results and related theoretical work on advanced regimes. These latter include in particular target normal sheath acceleration…
Ion beam has been used in cancer treatment, and has a unique preferable feature to deposit its main energy inside a human body so that cancer cell could be killed by the ion beam. However, conventional ion accelerator tends to be huge in…
During the past decade, the interaction of high-intensity lasers with solid targets has attracted much interest, regarding its potential in accelerating charged particles. In spite of tremendous progress in laser-plasma based acceleration,…
We show that monoenergetic ion beams can be accelerated by moderate Mach number collisionless, electrostatic shocks propagating in a long scale-length exponentially decaying plasma profile. Strong plasma heating and density steepening…
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…
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…
Ion acceleration driven by superintense laser pulses is attracting an impressive and steadily increasing effort. Motivations can be found in the potential for a number of foreseen applications and in the perspective to investigate novel…
Laser-plasma accelerators produce electric fields of the order of 100 GV/m, more than 1000 times larger than radio-frequency accelerators. Thanks to this unique field strength, they appear as a promising path to generate electron beams…