Increased efficiency of ion acceleration by using femtosecond laser pulses at higher harmonic frequency

Abstract

The influence of laser frequency on laser-driven ion acceleration is investigated by means of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. When ultrashort intense laser pulse at higher harmonic frequency irradiates a thin solid foil, the target may become re lativistically transparent for significantly lower laser pulse intensity compared with irradiation at fundamental laser frequency. The relativistically induced transparency results in an enhanced heating of hot electrons as well as increased maximum energies of accelerated ions and their numbers. Our simulation results have shown the increase in maximum proton energy and increase in the number of high-energy protons by a factor of 2 after the interaction of an ultrashort laser pulse of maximum intensity 7 x 10(21) W/cm(2) with a fully ionized plastic foil of realistic density and of optimal thickness between 100 nm and 200 nm when switching from the fundamental frequency to the third harmonics.