JACoW is a publisher in Geneva, Switzerland that publishes the proceedings of accelerator conferences held around the world by an international collaboration of editors.
TY - UNPB AU - Schreiber, J. ED - Herfurth, Frank ED - Schaa, Volker RW TI - Laser-Ion Acceleration in Plasmas J2 - Proc. of HIAT2022, Darmstadt, Germany, 27 June-01 July 2022 CY - Darmstadt, Germany T2 - International Conference on Heavy Ion Accelerator Technology T3 - 15 LA - english AB - Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) laser systems such as the Advanced Titanium-Sapphire Laser (ATLAS) operated in the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications (CALA) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich can now provide laser pulses with Petawatt peak power and ~30 fs duration. When tightly focussed onto a target, typically a (sub-)micrometer thin foil, electrons are driven relativistically and seperated from ions, so that they are dragged along. The rectified electric fields that both generate high charge states as well as accelerate ions are of order of the laser fields, ~1 to 100 MV/µm. I will review the physical processes at play and present the characteristics of ion sources, in particular the energy distributions that are accessible with current technology [1]. The fact that ions are energized by ultrashort laser pulses results in a number of intriguing and novel applications, for example time resolved investigation of processes that follow energy deposition in water [2]. I will also report on recent observations of acceleration of gold ions to MeV/u kinetic energy. The observed charge state and energy distributions challenge physical models and inspire nonlinear nuclear physics approaches [3]. PB - JACoW Publishing CP - Geneva, Switzerland ER -