Berlin 2014 – scientific programme
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P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik
P 26: Laser Plasmas II
P 26.1: Talk
Thursday, March 20, 2014, 16:30–16:45, SPA HS202
Influence of laser contrast, foil thickness and material on laser driven proton acceleration — •Georg A. Becker1, Jens Polz1, Oliver Jäckel1,2, Ajay Kawshik Arunachalam1,2, Robert Brüning1, Marco Hornung1,2, Sebastian Keppler1, Hartmut Liebetrau1, Marco Hellwing1, Frank Schorcht1,2, Theodor Schlegel2, and Malte C. Kaluza1,2 — 1Institut für Optik und Quantenelektronik, 07743 Jena, Germany — 2Helmholtz Institut Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany
In a laser-plasma experiment using the fully diode-pumped Yb:glass POLARIS laser system which currently delivers pulses with 4 J energy and 150 fs duration at a repetition rate of 1/40 Hz on target, we investigated the influence of foil thickness, material and pulse contrast on the maximum achievable proton energy.
For this we used copper, silver, gold, aluminium and tantalum foils with different thicknesses from a few 10 micrometers down to 100 nanometers. Furthermore the influence of the pulse contrast was investigated by using a fast Pockels cell and an alternative front-end based on XPW (cross-polarized wave generation).
Significant differences between the different target thicknesses and materials were observed for different contrast ratios which will be discussed in this presentation.
As an approach for the explanation for our findings, we performed hydrodynamic simulations to study the influence of the target’s ion species the laser-generated preplasma and the influence of this preplasma on the acceleration process.