Enhanced laser-driven ion acceleration by superponderomotive electrons generated from near-critical-density plasma
- Resource Type
- Working Paper
- Authors
- Bin, J. H.; Yeung, M.; Gong, Z.; Wang, H. Y.; Kreuzer, C.; Zhou, M. L.; Streeter, M. J. V.; Foster, P. S.; Cousens, S.; Dromey, B.; Meyer-ter-Vehn, J.; Zepf, M.; Schreiber, J.
- Source
- Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 074801 (2018)
- Subject
- Physics - Plasma Physics
- Language
We report on the experimental studies of laser driven ion acceleration from double-layer target where a near-critical density target with a few-micron thickness is coated in front of a nanometer thin diamond-like carbon foil. A significant enhancement of proton maximum energies from 12 to ~30 MeV is observed when relativistic laser pulse impinge on the double-layer target under linear polarization. We attributed the enhanced acceleration to superponderomotive electrons that were simultaneously measured in the experiments with energies far beyond the free-electron ponderomotive limit. Our interpretation is supported by two-dimensional simulation results.