Laser-based proton acceleration experiments at the ALLS facility using a 200 TW high intensity laser system

Collimated beams of energetic protons are produced by the interaction of short duration high intensity laser pulses with solid foils. This field has been the subject of many studies in the last decade. This interest is motivated by the wide range of application of such beams: ion based fast ignitor schemes, probing of electromagnetic fields in plasma, isotope production or hadron therapy. The recently commissioned 200 TW laser system (5 J, 25 fs, 1010 laser pulse contrast, 10 Hz repetition rate at 800 nm) at the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) facility has been used to study proton acceleration with femtosecond laser pulses. The proton spectrum was characterized using a time of flight detector. Due to the high contrast of the laser pulse, foil targets as thin as 30 nm could be studied.

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