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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 103 » Issue 16
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 165002 (2009) [4 pages]

Energy Increase in Multi-MeV Ion Acceleration in the Interaction of a Short Pulse Laser with a Cluster-Gas Target

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Y. Fukuda1, A. Ya. Faenov1, M. Tampo1, T. A. Pikuz1, T. Nakamura1, M. Kando1, Y. Hayashi1, A. Yogo1, H. Sakaki1, T. Kameshima1, A. S. Pirozhkov1, K. Ogura1, M. Mori1, T. Zh. Esirkepov1, J. Koga1, A. S. Boldarev2, V. A. Gasilov2, A. I. Magunov3, T. Yamauchi4, R. Kodama5, P. R. Bolton1, Y. Kato1, T. Tajima1, H. Daido1, and S. V. Bulanov1,3
1Kansai Photon Science Institute and Photo-Medical Research Center, JAEA, Kyoto, 615-0215 Japan
2Institute of Mathematical Modeling, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 125047 Russia
3A. M. Prokhorov Institute of General Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119991 Russia
4Graduate School of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University, Kobe 658-0022, Japan
5Faculty of Engineering and Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka, 565-0871 Japan

Received 6 April 2009; published 13 October 2009

An approach for accelerating ions, with the use of a cluster-gas target and an ultrashort pulse laser of 150-mJ energy and 40-fs duration, is presented. Ions with energy 10–20 MeV per nucleon having a small divergence (full angle) of 3.4° are generated in the forward direction, corresponding to approximately tenfold increase in the ion energies compared to previous experiments using solid targets. It is inferred from a particle-in-cell simulation that the high energy ions are generated at the rear side of the target due to the formation of a strong dipole vortex structure in subcritical density plasmas.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.165002
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.165002
PACS:
52.38.Kd, 52.38.Hb, 52.65.Rr
 
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