Tomography of an ultrafast laser driven proton source

Ter-Avetisyan, S.*; Schnrer, M.*; Nickles, P. V.*; Sandner, W.*; Borghesi, M.*; Nakamura, Tatsufumi; Mima, Kunioki*

Using a multichannel Thomson spectrometer we have implemented a tomographic approach allowing the reconstruction of the emission characteristics of a laser driven proton source with high energy and spatial resolution. The results demonstrate the complexity of the temporal and spatial characteristics of such a source. The emitted proton beam, which is laminar and divergent ant high energies, becomes convergent at low energies. This implies that a fraction of the proton beam having this kinetic energy is emitted in a collimated way from the target at the turning point between these tow behaviors. Only a finite fraction of the target surface is contributing to the ion spectrum, which is measured at a specific angle within the beam cone. Therefore the momentum distribution of the protons in the emitted beam at any point in space can be controlled by determining the proton source area.