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Acceleration of ions up to 20 MeV/nucleon in the ultrashort, high-intensity regime
R. Prasad, S. Ter-Avetisyan, D. Doria, K.E. Quinn, L. Romagnani, M. Zepf, M. Borghesi, A. Andreev, P.S. Foster, C.M. Brenner, P. Gallegos, D. Neely, J.S. Green, M.J.V. Streeter, D.C. Carroll, O. Tresca, P. McKenna, N.P. Dover, C.A.J. Palmer, J. Schreiber, Z. Najmudin
The measurements reported here provide scaling laws for the ion acceleration process in the regime of ultrashort (50 fs), ultrahigh contrast (1010) and ultrahigh intensity (>1020W/cm2), never investigated previously. The scaling of the accelerated ion energies was studied by varying a number of parameters such as target thickness (down to 10 nm), target material (C and Al) and laser light polarization (circular and linear) at 35° and normal laser incidence. A twofold increase in proton energy and an order of magnitude enhancement in ion flux have been observed over the investigated thickness range at 35° angle of incidence. Furthermore, at normal laser incidence, measured peak proton energies of about 20 MeV are observed almost independently of the target thickness over a wide range (50 nm–10 μ m).