Physical Review Research (Oct 2024)

All-optical method for generating transient microstructured targets in laser ion acceleration

  • Ying Gao,
  • Pengjie Wang,
  • Bin Liu,
  • Shirui Xu,
  • Shiyou Chen,
  • Yinren Shou,
  • Jianbo Liu,
  • Zhusong Mei,
  • Zhengxuan Cao,
  • Tianqi Xu,
  • Zhipeng Liu,
  • Zhuo Pan,
  • Defeng Kong,
  • Ziyang Peng,
  • Yulan Liang,
  • Tan Song,
  • Xun Chen,
  • Qingfan Wu,
  • Yujia Zhang,
  • Jiarui Zhao,
  • Wei Qi,
  • Zhigang Deng,
  • Yanying Zhao,
  • Fuyuan Wu,
  • Matt Zepf,
  • Rafael Ramis,
  • Paul R. Bolton,
  • Xueqing Yan,
  • Wenjun Ma,
  • Jörg Schreiber

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L042031
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 4
p. L042031

Abstract

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We demonstrate an all-optical method that online produces “microstructured” targets by manipulating a Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) prepulse. Besides the enhancement of the proton number, the cutoff energy is nearly doubled. Such transient “microstructured” targets are characterized using both offline and online approaches. Based on probe experiments and hydrodynamic simulations, we develop a simple model to describe the electron density distribution upon the arrival of the main pulse. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations reveal that the annular plasma acts as an oscillating cavity for hot electrons and results in a cascaded acceleration effect. The combination of low-intensity LG prepulses and ultraintense Gaussian pulses opens another avenue for fine-tuning laser-plasma interactions spatiotemporally in interdisciplinary applications.