Laser-to-proton energy transfer efficiency in laser–plasma interactions

It is shown that the energy of protons accelerated in laser–matter interaction experiments may be significantly increased through the process of splitting the incoming laser pulse into multiple interaction stages of equal intensity. From a thermodynamic point of view, the splitting procedure can be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of plasma physics Vol. 75; no. 2; pp. 235 - 250
Main Authors FOURKAL, E., VELTCHEV, I., MA, C.-M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.04.2009
Subjects
Energy efficiency
Energy transfer
Exact sciences and technology
Laser-plasma interactions
Lasers
Physics
Physics of gases, plasmas and electric discharges
Physics of plasmas and electric discharges
Plasma
Plasma physics
Protons
Thermodynamics
Accelerators
Laser pulse
Energetic efficiency
Laser targets
Laser plasma interaction
Entropy
Experimental study
Energy transfer
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Summary:It is shown that the energy of protons accelerated in laser–matter interaction experiments may be significantly increased through the process of splitting the incoming laser pulse into multiple interaction stages of equal intensity. From a thermodynamic point of view, the splitting procedure can be viewed as an effective way of increasing the efficiency of energy transfer from the laser light to protons, which peaks for processes having the least amount of entropy gain. It is predicted that it should be possible to achieve at least a 100% increase in the energy efficiency in a six-stage laser proton accelerator compared with a single laser–target interaction scheme.
Bibliography:istex:39FA084BC8283E9068116B3E4ACCF3891A1C37AD
ArticleID:00746
PII:S0022377808007460
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ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0022-3778
1469-7807
DOI:10.1017/S0022377808007460