Improvement of energy-conversion efficiency from laser to proton beam in a laser-foil interaction.
PHYSICAL REVIEW. E, STATISTICAL, NONLINEAR, AND SOFT MATTER PHYSICS 2008;
78:046401. [PMID:
18999537 DOI:
10.1103/physreve.78.046401]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/11/2008] [Revised: 09/17/2008] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
Improvement of energy-conversion efficiency from laser to proton beam is demonstrated by particle simulations in a laser-foil interaction. When an intense short-pulse laser illuminates the thin-foil target, the foil electrons are accelerated around the target by the ponderomotive force. The hot electrons generate a strong electric field, which accelerates the foil protons, and the proton beam is generated. In this paper a multihole thin-foil target is proposed in order to increase the energy-conversion efficiency from laser to protons. The multiholes transpiercing the foil target help to enhance the laser-proton energy-conversion efficiency significantly. Particle-in-cell 2.5-dimensional ( x, y, vx, vy, vz) simulations present that the total laser-proton energy-conversion efficiency becomes 9.3% for the multihole target, though the energy-conversion efficiency is 1.5% for a plain thin-foil target. The maximum proton energy is 10.0 MeV for the multihole target and is 3.14 MeV for the plain target. The transpiercing multihole target serves as a new method to increase the energy-conversion efficiency from laser to ions.
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