Radiation pressure acceleration of thin foils with circularly polarized laser pulses

By A. Robinson, M. Zepf, S. Kar, R. Evans, C. Bellei. 2007

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A new regime is described for radiation pressure acceleration of a thin foil by an intense laser beam of above 1020 W cm−2. Highly monoenergetic proton beams extending to giga-electron-volt energies can be produced with very high efficiency using circularly polarized light. The proton beams have a very small divergence angle (<4°). This new method allows the construction of ultra-compact proton and ion accelerators with ultra-short particle bursts.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Geophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3a30dac97fb6e85ab6c1e44c5d5401ca3369fe00