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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 103 » Issue 24
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 245003 (2009) [4 pages]

Radiation-Pressure Acceleration of Ion Beams Driven by Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses

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A. Henig1,2,*, S. Steinke3, M. Schnürer3, T. Sokollik3, R. Hörlein1,2, D. Kiefer1,2, D. Jung1,2, J. Schreiber1,2,4, B. M. Hegelich2,5, X. Q. Yan1,6,†, J. Meyer-ter-Vehn1, T. Tajima2,7, P. V. Nickles3, W. Sandner3, and D. Habs1,2
1Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, D-85748 Garching, Germany
2Department für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany
3Max-Born-Institut, D-12489 Berlin, Germany
4Plasma Physics Group, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom
5Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
6State Key Lab of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
7Photomedical Research Center, JAEA, Kyoto, Japan

Received 20 August 2009; published 9 December 2009

We present experimental studies on ion acceleration from ultrathin diamondlike carbon foils irradiated by ultrahigh contrast laser pulses of energy 0.7 J focused to peak intensities of 5×1019  W/cm2. A reduction in electron heating is observed when the laser polarization is changed from linear to circular, leading to a pronounced peak in the fully ionized carbon spectrum at the optimum foil thickness of 5.3 nm. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations reveal that those C6+ ions are for the first time dominantly accelerated in a phase-stable way by the laser radiation pressure.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.245003
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.245003
PACS:
52.38.Kd, 41.75.Jv, 52.50.Jm, 52.65.Rr

*andreas.henig@mpq.mpg.de

†xyan@mpq.mpg.de

 
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