Mr. Timothy P. Frazer Profile

Timothy P. Frazer

at Univ of Strathclyde

SPIE Involvement:

Author

Publications (1)

This will count as one of your downloads.

You will have access to both the presentation and article (if available).

DOWNLOAD NOW

This content is available for download via your institution's subscription. To access this item, please sign in to your personal account.

Email or Username Forgot your username?

Password Forgot your password?

Show

Keep me signed in

No SPIE account? Create an account

Proceedings Article | 18 April 2021 Presentation

Enhanced laser intensity and ion acceleration due to self-focusing in expanding ultrathin foils

Paul McKenna, Timothy Frazer, Robbie Wilson, Martin King, Nicholas Butler, David Carroll, Matthew Duff, Adam Higginson, Jonathan Jarrett, Zoe Davidson, Chris Armstrong, Hao Liu, David Neely, Ross Gray

Proceedings Volume 11779, 117790K (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2589569

KEYWORDS: Ions, Ion lasers, Pulsed laser operation, Plasma, Transparency, Temperature metrology, Physics, Magnetism, Laser energy, High power lasers

Read Abstract +

The maximum energy to which ions are accelerated in the interaction of a high power laser pulse with a thin foil target scales with the laser intensity, with a power-law that varies with the acceleration mechanism and laser pulse parameters. For fixed laser energy and pulse duration, maximizing the intensity by focusing to a smaller focal spot does not, however, necessarily result in higher-energy ions. For the case of relatively thick foil targets, it has been shown that self-generated magnetic fields and unfavourable changes to the temperature and divergence of the fast electron population injected into the target can result in lower-energy sheath-accelerated ions compared to that expected from intensity scaling laws. We report results from an investigation of the influence of laser focusing on ion acceleration in the ultrathin target regime, for which high energy protons have been achieved by our group [1]. We compare the interaction physics resulting from the use of f/3 and f/1 focusing geometries. Although f/1 focusing (achieved using a focusing plasma optic) produces a smaller nominal laser focal spot size and thus higher nominal peak intensity, more efficient ion acceleration to higher energies is achieved with the f/3 geometry for the case of expanding ultrathin foils undergoing relativistic self-induced transparency. Particle-in-cell simulations reveal that self-focusing in the expanding plasma produces a near-diffraction-limited focal spot, resulting in up to an order of magnitude higher focused intensity in the f/3 case. We also report on the extent to which this intensity enhancement is expected in the case of the short-pulse, ultrahigh-intensity regime that will soon be accessible using multi-petawatt lasers. The study is published in reference [2]. [1] A. Higginson et al., Nature Communications 9, 724 (2018) [2] T. P. Frazer et al., Phys. Rev. Research 2, 042015(R) (2020)

My Library

You currently do not have any folders to save your paper to! Create a new folder below.

Folder Name

Folder Description

View contact details

UPDATE YOUR PROFILE

Is this your profile? Update it now.

Sign into your SPIE.org account

Don’t have a profile and want one?

Create an account on SPIE.org

Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks. You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*

*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please sign in to access your institution's subscriptions.

To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on SPIE.org.

ORGANIZATIONAL
Sign in with credentials provided by your organization.

Organizational Username

Organizational Password

Show/Hide Password

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members:

Non-members: ADD TO CART

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years