"Light Sail" Acceleration Revisited

Abstract

The dynamics of the acceleration of ultrathin foil targets by the radiation pressure of superintense, circularly polarized laser pulses is investigated by analytical modeling and particle-in-cell simulations. By addressing self-induced transparency and charge separation effects, it is shown that for "optimal" values of the foil thickness only a thin layer at the rear side is accelerated by radiation pressure. The simple "Light Sail" model gives a good estimate of the energy per nucleon, but overestimates the conversion efficiency of laser energy into monoenergetic ions.

4 pages, 3 figures. Second version modified and improved

References in corpus (4)

• Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration
• Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Thin Foils with Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses
• Radiation Pressure Acceleration by Ultraintense Laser Pulses
• Multi-Cascade Proton Acceleration by Superintense Laser Pulse in the Regime of Relativistically Induced Slab Transparency

Cited by in corpus (61)

• Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems
• Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction
• Ion acceleration in multispecies targets driven by intense laser radiation pressure
• Monoenergetic proton beams accelerated by a radiation pressure driven shock
• Laser-driven shock acceleration of monoenergetic ion beams
• Stable laser-driven proton beam acceleration from a two-specie ultra-thin foil
• Dominance of Radiation Pressure in Ion Acceleration with Linearly Polarized Pulses at Intensities of $10^{21}\text{W}{\text{cm}}^{-2}$
• Towards radiation pressure acceleration of protons using linearly polarized ultrashort petawatt laser pulses
• Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac vs Landau-Lifshitz radiation friction force in the ultrarelativistic electron interaction with electromagnetic wave (exact solutions)
• Radiation Pressure Acceleration: the factors limiting maximum attainable ion energy
• Prepulse and amplified spontaneous emission effects on the interaction of a petawatt class laser with thin solid targets
• Effect of electron heating on self-induced transparency in relativistic intensity laser-plasma interaction
• Efficient ion acceleration and dense electron-positron plasma creation in ultra-high intensity laser-solid interactions
• Dense monoenergetic proton beams from chirped laser-plasma interaction
• Monoenergetic High-energy Ion Source via Femtosecond Laser Incident Parallel to a Microplate
• Unlimited Energy Gain in the Laser-Driven Radiation Pressure Dominant Acceleration of Ions
• Physical mechanism of the transverse instability in radiation pressure ion acceleration
• Strong field electrodynamics of a thin foil
• Simulations of stable compact proton beam acceleration from a two-ion-species ultrathin foil
• Advanced strategies for ion acceleration using high power lasers
• Generation of high-energy monoenergetic heavy ion beams by radiation pressure acceleration of ultra-intense laser pulses
• Optimized laser pulse profile for efficient radiation pressure acceleration of ions
• Chirped standing wave acceleration of ions with intense lasers
• Ultrasmall divergence of laser-driven ion beams from nanometer thick foils
• Energy dispersion in radiation pressure accelerated ion beams
• Propulsion of Spacecrafts to Relativistic Speeds Using Natural Astrophysical Sources
• High-quality ion beams by irradiating a nano-structured target with a petawatt laser pulse
• Radiation pressure acceleration of high-quality ion beams using ultrashort laser pulses
• A Review of Laser-Plasma Ion Acceleration
• Dominance of hole-boring radiation pressure acceleration regime with thin ribbon of ionized solid hydrogen
• Theory and simulations of radiation friction induced enhancement of laser-driven longitudinal fields
• Structural Stability of a Lightsail for Laser-Driven Interstellar Flight
• Optimized laser ion acceleration at the relativistic critical density surface
• Plasma-Based Generation and Control of a Single Few-Cycle High-Energy Ultrahigh-Intensity Laser Pulse
• Target shape effects on monoenergetic GeV proton acceleration
• Enhancement on Laser Intensity and Proton Acceleration Using Micro-tube Plasma Lens Targets
• Energy-chirp compensation of laser-driven ion beams enabled by structured targets
• Self-trapping and acceleration of ions in laser-driven relativistically transparent plasma
• Gravitational waves generated by laser accelerated relativistic ions
• Spectral Control via Multi-Species Effects in PW-Class Laser-Ion Acceleration
• Absorption and opacity threshold for a thin foil in a strong circularly polarized laser field
• Broadband, High-Reflectivity Dielectric Mirrors at Wafer Scale: Combining Photonic Crystal and Metasurface Architectures for Advanced Lightsails
• Ion acceleration at two collisionless shocks in a multicomponent plasma
• Interaction of Electromagnetic Radiation with Luminal Mirror
• Effect of Electromagnetic Pulse Transverse Inhomogeneity on the Ion Acceleration by Radiation Pressure
• Electron and ion acceleration from femtosecond laser-plasma peeler scheme
• High-quality ion beams from a nanometric double-layer target and their application to hadron-therapy
• On the control of electron heating for optimal laser radiation pressure ion acceleration
• Ion acceleration 'via' relativistic self induced transparency in subwavelength target
• Chirp assisted ion acceleration via relativistic self induced transparency
• Enhanced laser-driven proton acceleration with gas-foil targets
• Controlled transition to different proton acceleration regimes: near-critical density plasmas driven by circularly polarized few cycle pulse
• Radiation pressure acceleration of protons from structured thin-foil targets
• The high density $\gamma$-ray emission and dense positron production via multi-lasers driven circular target
• Optimization of the Combined Proton Acceleration Regime with a Target Composition Scheme
• Analyzing the acceleration time and reflectance of light sails made from homogeneous and core-shell spheres
• Physical limits on electromagnetic response
• Optimization of laser-driven proton acceleration in a near-critical-density plasma
• Experimental Simulation of Dust Impacts at Starflight Velocities
• Generation of quasi-monoenergetic proton beams via quantum radiative compression
• Radiation induced acceleration of ions