Calibration of a Thomson parabola ion spectrometer and Fujifilm imaging plate detectors for protons, deuterons, and alpha particles.

A Thomson parabola ion spectrometer has been designed for use at the Multiterawatt (MTW) laser facility at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at the University of Rochester. This device uses parallel electric and magnetic fields to deflect particles of a given mass-to-charge ratio onto parabolic curves on the detector plane. Once calibrated, the position of the ions on the detector plane can be used to determine the particle energy. The position dispersion of both the electric and magnetic fields of the Thomson parabola was measured using monoenergetic proton and alpha particle beams from the SUNY Geneseo 1.7 MV tandem Pelletron accelerator. The sensitivity of Fujifilm BAS-TR imaging plates, used as a detector in the Thomson parabola, was also measured as a function of the incident particle energy over the range from 0.6 MeV to 3.4 MeV for protons and deuterons and from 0.9 MeV to 5.4 MeV for alpha particles. The device was used to measure the energy spectrum of laser-produced protons at MTW.

[1]  J. Fuchs,et al.  Absolute calibration of photostimulable image plate detectors used as (0.5-20 MeV) high-energy proton detectors. , 2008, The Review of scientific instruments.

[2]  O Willi,et al.  Dynamics of electric fields driving the laser acceleration of multi-MeV protons. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[3]  Vincent Bagnoud,et al.  5 Hz, > 250 mJ optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier at 1053 nm. , 2005, Optics letters.

[4]  K. Witte,et al.  MeV ion jets from short-pulse-laser interaction with thin foils. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[5]  M. D. Perry,et al.  Fast ignition by intense laser-accelerated proton beams. , 2001, Physical review letters.

[6]  T. C. Sangster,et al.  Intense high-energy proton beams from Petawatt-laser irradiation of solids. , 2000, Physical review letters.

[7]  Edward B. Clark,et al.  Energetic heavy-Ion and proton generation from ultraintense laser-plasma interactions with solids , 2000, Physical review letters.

[8]  Deanna M. Pennington,et al.  Energetic proton generation in ultra-intense laser–solid interactions , 2000 .

[9]  T. Sakae,et al.  RESPONSE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN IMAGING PLATE TO CLINICAL PROTON BEAMS , 1999 .

[10]  Takashi Nakamura,et al.  Measurement of radiation tracks for particle and energy identification by using imaging plate , 1998 .

[11]  A. Roquemore,et al.  CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF PARALLEL ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC FIELD SPECTROMETERS FOR MASS/ENERGY RESOLVED MULTI-ION CHARGE EXCHANGE DIAGNOSTICS ON THE TOKAMAK FUSION TEST REACTOR , 1998 .

[12]  owski,et al.  Thomson parabola ion spectrograph with the microchannel plate image converter in investigations of high-Z laser plasma ion sources , 1996 .

[13]  J. Thomson.  Bakerian Lecture:—Rays of positive electricity , 1913 .

[14]  H. Daido,et al.  New Detection Device for Thomson Parabola Spectrometer for Diagnosis of the Laser-Plasma Ion Beam , 2006 .