Development and characterization of targets to test laser proton acceleration to GeV energies using novel acceleration mechanisms

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Markus Roth
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Optik, Quantenoptik und Physik der Atome, Moleküle und Plasmen
• Förderung: Förderung von 2012 bis 2018
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 222910124

The acceleration of ions by ultra-intense lasers is a young field of research with huge potential for basic research and applications. But, e.g. for medical applications (tumor therapy) proton beams of a few hundred MeV particle energy are required. All attempts to generate those beams by ultra-intense lasers have failed so far. New acceleration mechanisms require novel targets, which have to be designed, produced and to be well characterized reliably to meet e.g. medical acceptance. One promising and fairly new mechanism able to meet the requirements of medical treatment is the so called Break-Out-Afterburner (BOA). It has been predicted in theory (2006) and was demonstrated in part by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2010. According to the theory a pure, frozen, free-standing, thin hydrogen target should yield protons of more than 200 MeV in energy driven by a laser system available today, and up to GeV for near future systems. The goal of the proposal is to produce such a target, to characterize its parameters and to test the predictions in a real experiment. The successful experimental demonstration of this acceleration scheme in combination with ultra-thin cryogenic targets could lead to a breakthrough for compact laser driven particle acceleration.Since the first submission of the proposal more experimental evidence of the BOA mechanism has been found, however due to a lack of an optimized target the experiments so far have all failed in reaching particle energies comparable with simulation or relevant for e.g. medical applications.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen