Effect of Foil Target Thickness in Proton Acceleration Driven by an Ultra-Short Laser

Proton acceleration experiments were carried out by a 1.2× 1018 W/cm2 ultra-short laser interaction with solid foil targets. The peak proton energy observed from an optimum target thickness of 7 μm in our experiments was 2.1 MeV. Peak proton energy and proton yield were investigated for different foil target thicknesses. It was shown that proton energy and conversion efficiency increased as the target became thinner, on one condition that the preplasma generated by the laser prepulse did not have enough shock energy and time to influence or destroy the target rear-surface. The existence of optimum foil thickness is due to the effect of the prepulse and hot electron transportation behavior on the foil target.

Maneuvering Target Tracking Algorithm Based on Muti-paramter Sequential Extended Kalman Filter

Based on the information theory,the performance of maneuvering target tracking can be improved by increasing the input information( observation vector).In this paper,the estimations of radial acceleration and radial velocity obtained in the signal processing are introduced into the measurement vector by coordinate transformation.In order to solve the problem of high nonlinearity of the radial acceleration,radial velocity and the state vector,a new algorithm of multi-parameter sequential extended Kalman filter( MSEKF) is proposed.The tracking performance of this algorithm is tested and compared with the other tracking algorithms.It is shown that the proposed algorithm outperforms these algorithms in strong and weak maneuvering environments.

Mapping non-laminar proton acceleration in laser-driven target normal sheath field

We report on experimental observation of non-laminar proton acceleration modulated by a strong magnetic field in laser irradiating micrometer aluminum targets.The results illustrate the coexistence of ring-like and filamentation structures.We implement the knife edge method into the radiochromic film detector to map the accelerated beams,measuring a source size of 30-110μm for protons of more than 5 MeV.The diagnosis reveals that the ring-like profile originates from low-energy protons far off the axis whereas the filamentation is from the near-axis high-energy protons,exhibiting non-laminar features.Particle-in-cell simulations reproduced the experimental results,showing that the short-term magnetic turbulence via Weibel instability and the long-term quasi-static annular magnetic field by the streaming electric current account for the measured beam profile.Our work provides direct mapping of laser-driven proton sources in the space-energy domain and reveals the non-laminar beam evolution at featured time scales.

Generation of fast protons in moderate-intensity laser-plasma interaction from rear sheath

Forward fast protons are generated by the moderate-intensity laser-foil interaction. Protons with maximum energy 190 keV are measured by using magnetic spectrometer and CR-39 solid state track detectors along the direction normal to the rear surface. The experimental results are also modeled by the paxticle-in-cell method, investigating the timevarying electron temperature and the rear sheath field. The temporal and spatial structure of the sheath electrical field, revealed in the simulation, suggests that these protons are accelerated by target normal sheath acceleration （TNSA） mechanism.

A unified formulation of optimal guidance-to-collision law for accelerating and decelerating targets

This paper provides a unified formulation of optimal guidance-to-collision law for a target with an arbitrary acceleration or deceleration.The collision course for general target acceleration or deceleration is first determined from the engagement geometry in conjunction with the nonlinear engagement kinematics in the proposed approach.The heading error defined in the collision course is then adopted as a variable to be nullified for accomplishing the intercept condition.The proposed guidance law is derived based on the heading error dynamics and the optimal error dynamics to ensure optimality and finite-time convergence.As illustrative examples,the proposed guidance command for a constant target acceleration and a target deceleration in the form of a quadratic function of speed are provided.Additionally,the time-to-go prediction method is suggested for implementing the proposed method.The characteristics of the proposed guidance command are analytically investigated to provide insight into the proposed method.The key benefits of the proposed method lie in not producing unnecessary guidance commands near a target compared to other methods and ensuring optimality in guidance command even in the nonlinear engagement kinematics.Finally,numerical simulations are performed to validate the proposed method and to show our findings.

Accelerating ions with high-energy short laser pulses from submicrometer thick targets

Using the example of the PHELIX high-energy short pulse laser we discuss the technical preconditions to investigate ion acceleration with submicrometer thick targets. We show how the temporal contrast of this system was improved to prevent pre-ionization of such targets on the nanosecond timescale. Furthermore the influence of typical fluctuations or uncertainties of the on-target intensity on ion acceleration experiments is discussed. We report how these uncertainties were reduced by improving the assessment and control of the on-shot intensity and by optimizing the positioning of the target into the focal plane. Finally we report on experimental results showing maximum proton energies in excess of 85 MeV for ion acceleration via the target normal sheath acceleration mechanism using target thicknesses on the order of one micrometer.

New-type internal target for structural ion stripping

The search is now on for new materials that can be used for ionic stripping. Materials that maximize the stripping of the structural ion are important for conducting experiments with quark-gluon plasma. Although this paper is a theoretical study, it offers practical applications, in heavy-ion accelerators, of the new effect of collision multiplicity with high-energy ions interacting with polyatomic targets. It is shown that internal nanostructured targets in which the collision multiplicity effect is manifested can more efficiently strip out structural ions compared to standard internal targets for stripping. A target consisting of oriented nano-tubes with the C_（240） chirality（10,0）is considered as an example. A comparison with the stripping process on a carbon target with the same number of misaligned atoms in a unit of volume C is provided.

Accelerated protons with energies up to 70 MeV based on the optimized SG-Ⅱ Peta-watt laser facility

The target backsheath field acceleration mechanism is one of the main mechanisms of laser-driven proton acceleration(LDPA)and strongly depends on the comprehensive performance of the ultrashort ultra-intense lasers used as the driving sources.The successful use of the SG-II Peta-watt(SG-II PW)laser facility for LDPA and its applications in radiographic diagnoses have been manifested by the good performance of the SG-II PW facility.Recently,the SG-II PW laser facility has undergone extensive maintenance and a comprehensive technical upgrade in terms of the seed source,laser contrast and terminal focus.LDPA experiments were performed using the maintained SG-II PW laser beam,and the highest cutoff energy of the proton beam was obviously increased.Accordingly,a double-film target structure was used,and the maximum cutoff energy of the proton beam was up to 70 MeV.These results demonstrate that the comprehensive performance of the SG-II PW laser facility was improved significantly.

Algebraic solution of differential geometric guidance command and time delay control

According to the three-dimensional geometry of the engagement,the explicit algebraic expression of differential geometric guidance command(DGGC)is proposed.Compared with the existing solutions,the algebraic solution is much simpler and better for the further research of the characteristics of DGGC.Time delay control(TDC)is a useful method to tackle the uncertainty problem of a control system.Based on TDC,taking the target maneuvering acceleration as a disturbance,the estimation algorithm of the target maneuvering acceleration is presented,which can be introduced in DGGC to improve its performance.Then,the augmented DGGC(ADGGC)is obtained.The numerical simulation of intercepting a high maneuvering target is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of ADGGC.

Simultaneous observation of ultrafast electron and proton beams in TNSA

The interaction of ultra-intense high-power lasers with solid-state targets has been largely studied for the past 20 years as a future compact proton and ion source.Indeed,the huge potential established on the target surface by the escaping electrons provides accelerating gradients of TV/m.This process,called target normal sheath acceleration,involves a large number of phenomena and is very difficult to study because of the picosecond scale dynamics.At the SPARC LAB Test Facility,the high-power laser FLAME is employed in experiments with solid targets,aiming to study possible correlations between ballistic fast electrons and accelerated protons.In detail,we have installed in the interaction chamber two different diagnostics,each one devoted to characterizing one beam.The first relies on electro-optic sampling,and it has been adopted to completely characterize the ultrafast electron components.On the other hand,a time-of-flight detector,based on chemical-vapour-deposited diamond,has allowed us to retrieve the proton energy spectrum.In this work,we report preliminary studies about simultaneous temporal resolved measurements of both the first forerunner escaping electrons and the accelerated protons for different laser parameters.