title: Dense blocks of energetic ions driven by multi-petawatt lasers.
abstract: Laser-driven ion accelerators have the advantages of compact size, high density, and short bunch duration over conventional accelerators. Nevertheless, it is still challenging to simultaneously enhance the yield and quality of laser-driven ion beams for practical applications. Here we propose a scheme to address this challenge via the use of emerging multi-petawatt lasers and a density-modulated target. The density-modulated target permits its ions to be uniformly accelerated as a dense block by laser radiation pressure. In addition, the beam quality of the accelerated ions is remarkably improved by embedding the target in a thick enough substrate, which suppresses hot electron refluxing and thus alleviates plasma heating. Particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that almost all ions in a solid-density plasma of a few microns can be uniformly accelerated to about 25% of the speed of light by a laser pulse at an intensity around 10(22) W/cm(2). The resulting dense block of energetic ions may drive fusion ignition and more generally create matter with unprecedented high energy density.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|SUPA, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK.
authors.forename: Z M
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Murakami
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: L L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang