Collisionless shocks in laser-produced plasma generate monoenergetic high-energy proton beams

• Autor(a) principal: Haberberger, D.
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Tochitsky, S., Fiuza, F., Gong, C., Fonseca, R. A., Silva, L. O., Mori, W., Joshi, C.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/public/pub/id/11207; http://hdl.handle.net/10071/7103

Compact and affordable ion accelerators based on laser-produced plasmas have potential applications in many fields of science and medicine. However, the requirement of producing focusable, narrow-energy-spread, energetic beams has proved to be challenging. Here we demonstrate that laser-driven collisionless shocks can accelerate proton beams to similar to 20MeV with extremely narrow energy spreads of about 1% and low emittances. This is achieved using a linearly polarized train of multiterawatt CO(2) laser pulses interacting with a gas-jet target. Computer simulations show that laser-heated electrons launch a collisionless shock that overtakes and reflects the protons in the slowly expanding hydrogen plasma, resulting in a narrow energy spectrum. Simulations predict the production of similar to 200MeV protons needed for radiotherapy by using current laser technology. These results open a way for developing a compact and versatile, high-repetition-rate ion source for medical and other applications.