title: Laser-Driven Ion Acceleration from Plasma Micro-Channel Targets.
abstract: Efficient energy boost of the laser-accelerated ions is critical for their applications in biomedical and hadron research. Achiev-able energies continue to rise, with currently highest energies, allowing access to medical therapy energy windows. Here, a new regime of simultaneous acceleration of ~100 MeV protons and multi-100 MeV carbon-ions from plasma micro-channel targets is proposed by using a ~1020W/cm2modest intensity laser pulse. It is found that two trains of overdense electron bunches are dragged out from the micro-channel and effectively accelerated by the longitudinal electric-field excited in the plasma channel. With the optimized channel size, these "superponderomotive" energetic electrons can be focused on the front surface of the attached plastic substrate. The much intense sheath electric-field is formed on the rear side, leading to up to ~10-fold ionic energy increase compared to the simple planar geometry. The analytical prediction of the optimal channel size and ion maximum energies is derived, which shows good agreement with the particle-in-cell simulations.
authors.affiliation: College of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China.|Institut für Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 40225 Germany.
authors.forename: D B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 40225 Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pukhov
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 40225 Germany.
authors.forename: L Q
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: College of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China.|IFSA Collaborative Innovation Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: H B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Zhuo
authors.affiliation: College of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: T P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: College of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: College of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: F Q
authors.initials: FQ
authors.lastname: Shao