Enhanced laser-driven ion acceleration by superponderomotive electrons generated from near-critical-density plasma

Abstract

We report on the experimental studies of laser driven ion acceleration from double-layer target where a near-critical density target with a few-micron thickness is coated in front of a nanometer thin diamond-like carbon foil. A significant enhancement of proton maximum energies from 12 to ~30 MeV is observed when relativistic laser pulse impinge on the double-layer target under linear polarization. We attributed the enhanced acceleration to superponderomotive electrons that were simultaneously measured in the experiments with energies far beyond the free-electron ponderomotive limit. Our interpretation is supported by two-dimensional simulation results.

References in corpus (4)

• Radiation Pressure Acceleration of Thin Foils with Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses
• Microengineering laser plasma interactions at relativistic intensities
• Laser Accelerated Ions from a Shock Compressed Gas Foil
• Longitudinal Ion Acceleration from High-Intensity Laser Interactions with Underdense Plasma

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