摘要：We present how chamber background pressure affects energetic proton acceleration from an ultra-intense laser incident on a thin liquid target. A high-repetition-rate (100 Hz), 3.5 mJ laser with peak intensity of $$8 imes 10^{18}, ext {Wcm}^{-2}$$ impinged on a 450 nm sheet of flowing liquid ethylene glycol. For these parameters, we experimentally demonstrate a threshold in laser-to-proton conversion efficiency at background pressures $$1, ext {MeV}$$ increases by an order of magnitude. Proton acceleration becomes increasingly efficient at lower background pressures and laser-to-proton conversion efficiency approaches a constant as the vacuum pressure decreases. We present two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and a charge neutralization model to support our experimental findings. Our experiment demonstrates that high vacuum is not required for energetic ion acceleration, which relaxes target debris requirements and facilitates applications of high-repetition rate laser-based proton accelerators.
其他摘要：Abstract We present how chamber background pressure affects energetic proton acceleration from an ultra-intense laser incident on a thin liquid target. A high-repetition-rate (100 Hz), 3.5 mJ laser with peak intensity of $$8 \times 10^{18}\,\text {Wcm}^{-2}$$ 8 × 10 18 Wcm - 2 impinged on a 450 nm sheet of flowing liquid ethylene glycol. For these parameters, we experimentally demonstrate a threshold in laser-to-proton conversion efficiency at background pressures $$1\,\text {MeV}$$ > 1 MeV increases by an order of magnitude. Proton acceleration becomes increasingly efficient at lower background pressures and laser-to-proton conversion efficiency approaches a constant as the vacuum pressure decreases. We present two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and a charge neutralization model to support our experimental findings. Our experiment demonstrates that high vacuum is not required for energetic ion acceleration, which relaxes target debris requirements and facilitates applications of high-repetition rate laser-based proton accelerators.
