Polarization dependence of bulk ion acceleration from ultrathin foils irradiated by high intensity, ultrashort laser pulses

Scullion, C. and Doria, D. and Romagnani, L. and Sgattoni, A. and Naughton, K. and Symes, D.R. and McKenna, P. and Macchi, A. and Zepf, M. and Kar, S. and Borghesi, M. (2017) Polarization dependence of bulk ion acceleration from ultrathin foils irradiated by high intensity, ultrashort laser pulses. Physical Review Letters, 119. 054801. ISSN 1079-7114 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.054801)

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Abstract

The acceleration of ions from ultrathin (10-100 nm) carbon foils has been investigated using intense (∼ 6 x1020 Wcm-2), ultrashort (45 fs) laser pulses, highlighting a strong dependence of the ion beam parameters on the laser polarization, with circularly polarized (CP) pulses producing the highest energies for both protons and carbons (25-30 MeV/nucleon); carbon ion energies obtained employing CP pulses were signicantly higher (∼2.5 times) than for irradiations employing linearly polarized (LP) pulses. Particle-in-cell simulations indicate that Radiation Pressure Acceleration becomes the dominant mechanism for the thinnest targets and CP pulses.

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