Low divergence proton beams from a laser-plasma accelerator at kHz repetition rate

Abstract

Proton beams with up to 100 pC bunch charge, 0.48 MeV cut-off energy and divergence as low as a $3^{\circ }$ were generated from solid targets at kHz repetition rate by a few-mJ femtosecond laser under controlled plasma conditions. The beam spatial profile was measured using a small aperture scanning time-of-flight detector. Detailed parametric studies were performed by varying the surface plasma scale length from 8 to 80 nm and the laser pulse duration from 4 fs to 1.5 ps. Numerical simulations are in good agreement with observations and, together with an in-depth theoretical analysis of the acceleration mechanism, indicate that high repetition rate femtosecond laser technology could be used to produce few-MeV protons beams for applications.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures (main text). 7 pages, 6 figures (supplemental material)

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Ion acceleration with few cycle relativistic laser pulses from foil targets
• Simultaneous generation and detection of energetic particle and radiation beams from relativistic plasma mirrors driven at kHz repetition rate