Prospects for laser-driven ion acceleration through controlled displacement of electrons by standing waves
Journal article, 2018

During the interaction of intense femtosecond laser pulses with various targets, the natural mechanisms of laser energy transformation inherently lack temporal control and thus commonly do not provide opportunities for a controlled generation of a well-collimated, high-charge beam of ions with a given energy of particular interest. In an effort to alleviate this problem, it was recently proposed that the ions can be dragged by an electron bunch trapped in a controllably moving potential well formed by laser radiation. Such standing-wave acceleration (SWA) can be achieved through reflection of a chirped laser pulse from a mirror, which has been formulated as the concept of chirped-standing-wave acceleration (CSWA). Here, we analyse general feasibility aspects of the SWA approach and demonstrate its reasonable robustness against field structure imperfections, such as those caused by misalignment, ellipticity, and limited contrast. Using this, we also identify prospects and limitations of the CSWA concept.

Author

Joel Magnusson

Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics

Felix Mackenroth

Max Planck Society

Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics

Mattias Marklund

Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics

Arkady Gonoskov

Russian Academy of Sciences

Chalmers, Physics, Theoretical Physics

Lobachevsky University

Physics of Plasmas

1070-664X (ISSN) 1089-7674 (eISSN)

Vol. 25 5 053109

Subject Categories

Accelerator Physics and Instrumentation

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1063/1.5026473

More information

Latest update

6/7/2018 1