title: Quasimonoenergetic deuteron bursts produced by ultraintense laser pulses.
abstract: We report on the generation and laser acceleration of bunches of energetic deuterons with a small energy spread at about 2 MeV. This quasimonoenergetic peak within the ion energy spectrum was observed when heavy-water microdroplets were irradiated with ultrashort laser pulses of about 40 fs duration and high (10(-8)) temporal contrast, at an intensity of 10(19) W/cm(2). The results can be explained by a simple physical model related to spatial separation of two ion species within a finite-volume target. The production of quasimonoenergetic ions is a long-standing goal in laser-particle acceleration; it could have diverse applications such as in medicine or in the development of future compact ion accelerators.
authors.affiliation: Max-Born-Institut Berlin, Max-Born-Strasse 2a, D-12489 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ter-Avetisyan
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schnürer
authors.forename: P V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Nickles
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kalashnikov
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Risse
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sokollik
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sandner
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Andreev
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tikhonchuk