Stable high-energy proton acceleration with water-leaf targets driven by intense laser pulses
Laser plasma acceleration techniques hold promise for generating compact, high-flux relativistic proton bunches. However, the inherent instability of laser-plasma interactions and the requirement for reliable proton source stability often hinder their practical applications. In this paper, we explore the potential of a water-leaf target irradiated by 27 fs laser pulses with energies ranging from 1.1 to 9.9 J and peak intensities spanning from <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:msup><a:mn>10</a:mn><a:mn>20</a:mn></a:msup></a:math> to <b:math xmlns:b="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><b:mrow><b:msup><b:mn>10</b:mn><b:mn>21</b:mn></b:msup><b:mspace width="4.pt"/><b:msup><b:mtext>W/cm</b:mtext><b:mn>2</b:mn></b:msup></b:mrow></b:math>. We finally conducted a series of 400 shots with a peak power of 300 TW, producing proton energies up to 30 MeV and peak flux beyond <d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><d:mrow><d:msup><d:mn>10</d:mn><d:mn>9</d:mn></d:msup><d:mspace width="0.16em"/><d:mtext>protons</d:mtext><d:mspace width="0.16em"/><d:msup><d:mtext>MeV</d:mtext><d:mrow><d:mo>−</d:mo><d:mn>1</d:mn></d:mrow></d:msup><d:mspace width="0.16em"/><d:msup><d:mtext>msr</d:mtext><d:mrow><d:mo>−</d:mo><d:mn>1</d:mn></d:mrow></d:msup></d:mrow></d:math>. These results demonstrate the possibility of long-term, stable, and efficient proton acceleration at high repetition rates, addressing a key challenge in laser-plasma acceleration.
Authors
- Alexander Prasselsperger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4439-3582)
- Julia Liese (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7979-5405)
- Leonard Doyle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6197-0575)
- Massimo De Marco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5333-7550)
- J. Schreiber (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9904-9389)
- Mikheil Kharbedia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2128-9945)
- A. Schmidt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6147-8695)
- Tim Pohle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1082-2191)
- S. Biswas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7176-3887)
- Felix Balling (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6378-0213)
- Felix Schweiger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-9814-2922)
- S. Karsch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0746-0731)
- Sonja Gerlach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6941-1121)
- Matthias F. Kling (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1710-0775)
- Michael Bachhammer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6232-5815)
- Lixin He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9632-2131)
- I. Hofrichter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6684-4587)
Institutions
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- ELI-HU Research and Development Non-Profit (HU)
- Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (DE)
- Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (Netherlands) (NL)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Research
- Published
- 2025-05-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.7.023190
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 7.48
Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
- China Scholarship Council
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München