Forward acceleration of 100-MeV protons triggered by intense laser irradiation of H cluster targets

Matsui, Ryutaro; Fukuda, Yuji; Kawahito, Daiki*; Kishimoto, Yasuaki*

In order to examine energy distributions of ions, we performed a 3D PIC simulation concerning an interaction between the high power laser and H cluster targets with a radius of 600 nm, at a laser intensity of 1.010 W/cm. The simulation results shows that in addition to symmetric electric fields by the Coulomb repulsive force, asymmetric sheath electric fields are generated due to electrons pushed forward by the Lorenz force, JB. As a result, ions are accelerated forward up to 100 MeV by the anisotropic electric field of Coulomb explosion which consists of the symmetric electric fields and the asymmetric sheath fields. These results suggest that by using J-KAREN-P laser and submicron-size H cluster targets, protons with energies of 100 MeV can be produced.