Directed Coulomb explosion effect on proton acceleration by an intense laser pulse from a double-layer target

摘要

We examine ion acceleration by irradiating a hundred TW laser pulse on adouble-layer target. It is shown analytically and by three-dimensionalparticle-in-cell simulations that higher energy protons are obtained by usingmaterial with a high charge-to-mass ratio in the first layer of a double-layertarget, because a strong Coulomb explosion occurs in such a material. As aresult, the protons keep accelerating for a longer time. Using the optimalconditions for the target, it is shown that high energy and high qualityprotons can be generated.