Development of a novel laser-based ion acceleration technique using a target containing nanoparticles

Fukuda, Yuji

An approach for accelerating ions, with the use of a cluster-gas target and an ultrashort pulse laser, is presented. Ions with energy 10-20 MeV per nucleon are generated in the forward direction, corresponding to approximately tenfold increase in the ion energies compared to previous experiments using solid targets. It is inferred from a particle-in-cell simulation that the high energy ions are generated at the rear side of the target due to the formation of a strong dipole vortex structure in subcritical density plasmas.