Erlangen 2022 – scientific programme

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K: Fachverband Kurzzeit- und angewandte Laserphysik

K 7: Laser-Beam Matter Interaction - Laser Applications II

K 7.2: Talk

Thursday, March 17, 2022, 14:15–14:30, K-H4

Update on the laser heavy ion acceleration at CALA — •Laura Desiree Geulig, Erin Grace Fitzpatrick, Maximilian Weiser, Florian H. Lindner, and Peter G. Thirolf — LMU Munich

We report on the current work on laser driven heavy ion acceleration at the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications (CALA), using the ATLAS 3000 laser with a central wavelength of 800 nm, a pulse length of about 25 fs and currently up to 8 J energy on target in the context of developing the novel 'fission-fusion' nuclear reaction mechanism [1]. First the efficient acceleration of gold ions with kinetic cutoff-energies above 7 MeV/u is targeted. For our experiments the laser is focused with an f/2 parabola on gold foils with thicknesses ranging from 100 nm to 500 nm. To analyze the accelerated ion bunch, a Thomson Parabola Spectrometer was designed that resolves the full proton and gold spectrum as well as the individual gold charge states [2]. A radiative heating system is integrated into the setup to enhance the acceleration of gold ions by removing hydro-carbon surface contaminations. An integrated IR spectrometer allows for in-situ measurement of the heated foil temperature, while enabling a simultaneous monitoring with a camera to detect possible thermal damage to the foil [3]. With the current setup, proton cutoff energies above 21 MeV have already been realized.

[1] D. Habs et al., Appl. Phys. B 103, 471-484 (2011) [2] F.H. Lindner et al., arXiv:2104.14520, submitted to Scientific Reports (2021) [3] M. Weiser, Master Thesis, LMU Munich, 2021

This work was funded by BMBF (05P2018WMEN9).