Speaker
Description
Long-wave infra-red lasers, like the TW CO2 laser at the Accelerator Test Facility (ATF), offer a number of benefits in studying laser-driven ion acceleration, including favorable scaling of the critical density, and the ability to access relativistic regimes at lower intensities. We present recent work studying hole-boring radiation pressure acceleration (HB-RPA) and collisionless shock acceleration at near-critical densities with a0~1. We demonstrate spectrally peaked, MeV level protons for shaped, near-critical density hydrogen gas targets, showing good agreement with the predicted HB-RPA energy scaling. We also report on decreasing proton energy spreads with increasing target density, down to 5%. Finally, we report on the new opportunity for shock imaging via a 100fs Ti:sapphire probe capability available now at the ATF.
Acknowledgments
This work is funded by the U.S.
Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-SC0012704
