Prepulse and amplified spontaneous emission effects on the interaction of a petawatt class laser with thin solid targets

Abstract

When a finite contrast petawatt laser pulse irradiates a micron-thick foil, a prepulse (including amplified spontaneous emission) creates a preplasma, where an ultrashort relativistically strong portion of the laser pulse (the main pulse) acquires higher intensity due to relativistic self-focusing and undergoes fast depletion transferring energy to fast electrons. If the preplasma thickness is optimal, the main pulse can reach the target generating fast ions more efficiently than an ideal, infinite contrast, laser pulse. A simple analytical model of a target with preplasma formation is developed and the radiation pressure dominant acceleration of ions in this target is predicted. The preplasma formation by a nanosecond prepulse is analyzed with dissipative hydrodynamic simulations. The main pulse interaction with the preplasma is studied with multi-parametric particle-in-cell simulations. The optimal conditions for hundreds of MeV ion acceleration are found with accompanying effects important for diagnostics, including high-order harmonics generation.

20 pages, 17 figures

References in corpus (17)

• Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction
• Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration
• Femtosecond x rays from laser-plasma accelerators
• Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Thin Foils with Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses
• Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Ion Beams Driven by Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses
• "Light Sail" Acceleration Revisited
• 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
• Laser Ion Acceleration Scaling Laws Seen in Muti-Parametric PIC Simulations
• Novel path towards compact laser ion accelerators for hadron therapy: Tenfold energy increase in laser-driven multi-MeV ion generation using a gas target mixed with submicron clusters
• Generation of GeV protons from 1 PW laser interaction with near critical density targets
• Accelerating Protons to Therapeutic Energies with Ultra-Intense Ultra-Clean and Ultra-Short Laser Pulses
• Towards radiation pressure acceleration of protons using linearly polarized ultrashort petawatt laser pulses
• Unlimited Energy Gain in the Laser-Driven Radiation Pressure Dominant Acceleration of Ions
• Tunable high-energy ion source via oblique laser pulse incidence on a double-layer target
• Optimized laser pulse profile for efficient radiation pressure acceleration of ions

Cited by in corpus (11)

• High power gamma flare generation in multi-petawatt laser interaction with tailored targets
• Relativistic Mirrors in Laser Plasmas (Analytical Methods)
• Backward-Propagating MeV Electrons in Ultra-Intense Laser Interactions: Standing Wave Acceleration and Coupling to the Reflected Laser Pulse
• Optimisation of Thin Plastic Foil Targets for Production of Laser-Generated Protons in the GeV Range
• Towards Bright Gamma-Ray Flash Generation From Tailored Target Irradiated by Multi-Petawatt Laser
• Dominance of hole-boring radiation pressure acceleration regime with thin ribbon of ionized solid hydrogen
• Laser-plasma proton acceleration with a combined gas-foil target
• The role of standing wave in the generation of hot electrons by femtosecond laser beams incident on dense ionized target
• Laser Ion Acceleration from Mass-Limited Targets with Preplasma
• Suppression of power losses during laser pulse propagation in underdense plasma slab
• Brilliant circularly polarized $\gamma$-ray sources via single-shot laser plasma interaction