Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils

Martin, Philip and Ahmed, Hamad and Doria, Domenico and Cerchez, Mirela and Hanton, Fiona and Gwynne, Deborah and Alejo, Aaron and Fernández-Tobias, Javier and Green, James and Macchi, Andrea and Maclellan, David and McKenna, Paul and Ruiz, Jesús Álvarez and Swantusch, Marco and Willi, Oswald and Zhai, Shuhua and Borghesi, Marco and Kar, Satyabrata (2024) Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils. Communications Physics, 7. 3. ISSN 2399-3650 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4)

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Abstract

Interaction of intense lasers with nm thick targets provides an attractive regime for the acceleration of ions of all types. Acceleration of heavy ions however is undermined in the presence of low charge contaminant species due to their higher charge-to-mass ratio. Here we show a narrow-band acceleration of very heavy Au ions from ∼15 nm Au foils driven by a sub-Petawatt laser, with spectral peaks of 1.5 ± 0.5 GeV at fluxes on the order of 1012 particles per steradian. 3D and 2D particle-in-cell simulations show a complex interplay between different acceleration mechanisms at different stages of the interaction, suggesting the spectrally peaked Au ion bunches stem from strong radiation pressure acceleration on a heavy-ion dominant plasma in the moments just before transparency, followed by an efficient acceleration due to transparency-enhanced mechanisms.

  • Item type:Article
    ID code:87096
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    3 January 2024
    Published
    9 October 2023
    Accepted
    15 June 2022
    Submitted
    Subjects:Science > Physics > Optics. Light
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:27 Oct 2023 13:55
    Last modified:26 Apr 2024 01:06
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/87096
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