Two surface plasmon decay of plasma oscillations

Abstract

The interaction of ultra-intense lasers with solid foils can be used to accelerate ions to high energies well exceeding 60 MeV. The non-linear relativistic motion of electrons in the intense laser radiation leads to their acceleration and later to the acceleration of ions. Ions can be accelerated from the front surface, the foil interior region, and the foil rear surface (TNSA, most widely used), or the foil may be accelerated as a whole if sufficiently thin (RPA). Here, we focus on the most widely used mechanism for laser ion-acceleration of TNSA. Starting from perfectly flat foils we show by simulations how electron filamentation at or inside the solid leads to a spatial modulations in the ions. The exact dynamics depend very sensitively on the chosen initial parameters which has a tremendous effect on electron dynamics. In the case of step-like density gradients we find evidence that suggests a two-surface-plasmon decay of plasma oscillations triggering a Raileigh-Taylor-like instability.

References in corpus (2)

• Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration
• Laser-Driven Rayleigh-Taylor Instability: Plasmonics Effects and Three-Dimensional Structures

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Probing Ultrafast Magnetic-Field Generation by Current Filamentation Instability in Femtosecond Relativistic Laser-Matter Interactions
• Observation of ultrafast solid-density plasma dynamics using femtosecond X-ray pulses from a free-electron laser
• Nanoscale femtosecond imaging of transient hot solid density plasmas with elemental and charge state sensitivity using resonant coherent diffraction
• Simple scaling equations for electron spectra, currents and bulk heating in ultra-intense short-pulse laser-solid interaction
• Progress in relativistic laser-plasma interaction with kilotesla-level applied magnetic fields
• Probing the dynamics of solid density micro-wire targets after ultra-intense laser irradiation using a free-electron laser
• Nanoscale subsurface dynamics of solids upon high-intensity laser irradiation observed by femtosecond grazing-incidence x-ray scattering