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

Philip Martin; Hamad Ahmed; Domenico Doria; Mirela Cerchez; Fiona Hanton; Deborah Gwynne; Aaron Alejo; Javier Fernandez-Tobias; James  Green; Andrea  Macchi; David MacLellan; Paul McKenna; Jesus Alvarez Ruiz; Marco Swantusch; Oswald  Willi; Shuhua Zhai; Marco Borghesi; Satyabrata Kar

doi:10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4

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

Philip Martin^*, Hamad Ahmed^*, Domenico Doria, Mirela Cerchez, Fiona Hanton, Deborah Gwynne, Aaron Alejo, Javier Fernandez-Tobias, James Green, Andrea Macchi, David MacLellan, Paul McKenna, Jesus Alvarez Ruiz, Marco Swantusch, Oswald Willi, Shuhua Zhai, Marco Borghesi, Satyabrata Kar^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Mathematics and Physics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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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 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.

Original language	English
Article number	3
Number of pages	9
Journal	Communications Physics
Volume	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4
Publication status	Published - 03 Jan 2024

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Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils
Copyright 2024 the authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.
Final published version, 1.91 MBLicence: CC BY

Dataset for "Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils"
Kar, S. (Creator), Martin, P. (Contributor) & Ahmed, H. (Contributor), Queen's University Belfast, Sept 2023
DOI: 10.17034/a87b2bb1-4312-4813-b590-e608807300df
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Martin, P., Ahmed, H., Doria, D., Cerchez, M., Hanton, F., Gwynne, D., Alejo, A., Fernandez-Tobias, J., Green, J., Macchi, A., MacLellan, D., McKenna, P., Alvarez Ruiz, J., Swantusch, M., Willi, O., Zhai, S., Borghesi, M., & Kar, S. (2024). Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils. Communications Physics, 7, Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4

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title = "Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils",

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 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.",

author = "Philip Martin and Hamad Ahmed and Domenico Doria and Mirela Cerchez and Fiona Hanton and Deborah Gwynne and Aaron Alejo and Javier Fernandez-Tobias and James Green and Andrea Macchi and David MacLellan and Paul McKenna and {Alvarez Ruiz}, Jesus and Marco Swantusch and Oswald Willi and Shuhua Zhai and Marco Borghesi and Satyabrata Kar",

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Martin, P, Ahmed, H, Doria, D, Cerchez, M, Hanton, F, Gwynne, D, Alejo, A, Fernandez-Tobias, J, Green, J, Macchi, A, MacLellan, D, McKenna, P, Alvarez Ruiz, J, Swantusch, M, Willi, O, Zhai, S, Borghesi, M & Kar, S 2024, 'Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils', Communications Physics, vol. 7, 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4

TY - JOUR

T1 - Narrow-band acceleration of gold ions to GeV energies from ultra-thin foils

AU - Martin, Philip

AU - Ahmed, Hamad

AU - Doria, Domenico

AU - Cerchez, Mirela

AU - Hanton, Fiona

AU - Gwynne, Deborah

AU - Alejo, Aaron

AU - Fernandez-Tobias, Javier

AU - Green, James

AU - Macchi, Andrea

AU - MacLellan, David

AU - McKenna, Paul

AU - Alvarez Ruiz, Jesus

AU - Swantusch, Marco

AU - Willi, Oswald

AU - Zhai, Shuhua

AU - Borghesi, Marco

AU - Kar, Satyabrata

PY - 2024/1/3

Y1 - 2024/1/3

N2 - 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 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.

AB - 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 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.

U2 - 10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4

DO - 10.1038/s42005-023-01425-4

M3 - Article

SN - 2399-3650

VL - 7

JO - Communications Physics

JF - Communications Physics

M1 - 3

ER -

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

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