Chirp assisted ion acceleration via relativistic self-induced transparency

Abstract

We study the effect of the chirped laser pulse on the transmission and associated ion acceleration by the sub-wavelength target. In the chirped laser pulses, the pulse frequency has a temporal variation about its fundamental frequency, which manifests to the temporal dependence of the critical density (nc). In this work, we used a chirp model which is beyond the linear approximation. For negatively (positively) chirped pulses, the high (low) frequency component of the pulse interacts with the target initially followed by the low (high) frequency component. The threshold plasma density for the transmission of the pulse is found to be higher for the negatively chirped laser pulses as compared to the unchirped or positively chirped pulses. The enhanced transmission of the negatively chirped pulses for higher densities (6nc) results in very efficient heating of the target electrons, creating a very stable and persistent longitudinal electrostatic field behind the target. The void of the electrons results in expansion of the target ions in either direction, resulting in the broad energy spectrum. We have introduced a very thin, low density (<nc) secondary layer behind the primary layer. The ions from the secondary layer are then found to be accelerated as a mono-energetic bunch under the influence of the electrostatic field created by the primary layer upon interaction by the negatively chirped pulse. Under the optimum conditions, the maximum energy of the protons is found to be ∼100 MeV for 10 fs (intensity FWHM); Circularly Polarized; Gaussian; negatively chirped laser pulse with peak intensity ∼8.5 × 1020 W/cm2.