Ionization injection of highly-charged copper ions for laser driven acceleration from ultra-thin foils.

ABSTRACT: Laser-driven ion acceleration is often analyzed assuming that ionization reaches a steady state early in the interaction of the laser pulse with the target. This assumption breaks down for materials of high atomic number for which the ionization occurs concurrently with the acceleration process. Using particle-in-cell simulations, we have examined acceleration and simultaneous field ionization of copper ions in ultra-thin targets (20-150 nm thick) irradiated by a laser pulse with intensity 1 × 10²¹ W/cm². At this intensity, the laser pulse drives strong electric fields at the rear side of the target that can ionize Cu to charge states with valence L-shell or full K-shell. The highly-charged ions are produced only in a very localized region due to a significant gap bet

SUBMITTER: Li J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6345865 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature