Combining the ultra-cold and the ultra-hot for laser-plasma proton acceleration

by Daniele Margarone (ELI-Beamlines, Dolni Brezany, CZ)

Friday 15 Jul 2016, 10:30 → 12:00 Europe/Berlin

1.173 (European XFEL, Campus Schenefeld)

A high power pulsed laser was focused onto a solid Hydrogen target to accelerate a collimated proton stream carrying on very high energy of about 20 J and extremely large charge of about ~1 mC per laser pulse. This result was achieved for the first time through the combination of a sophisticated target system (H2 thin ribbon) operating at cryogenic temperature (~10 K) and a subnanosecond laser with intensity of ~3x1016 W/cm2. Both the H-plasma and the accelerated proton beam were fully characterized by different in-situ and ex-situ diagnostics. These results, obtained using the ELISE (Experiments on Laser Interaction with Solid hydrogEn) H2 target delivery system at PALS kJ-class laser facility, will be presented and discussed along with potential applications of the proposed acceleration scheme in non-conventional proton therapy and fast ignition for inertial confinement fusion. The potential use of this innovative target delivery system with the PW-class, 10 Hz laser system available in 2018 at ELI-Beamlines will also be discussed.