Thomson Parabola Spectrometer for Energetic Ions Emitted from Sub-ns Laser Generated Plasmas

• Main Authors: Mariapompea Cutroneo, Lorenzo Torrisi, Lucio Ando’, Salvatore Cavallaro, Jiri Ullschmied, Josef Krasa, Daniele Margarone, Andreji Velyhan, Miroslav Pfeifer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: CTU Central Library 2013-01-01
• Series: Acta Polytechnica
• Subjects: Thomson parabola spectrometer; high intensity laser; focal position; Opera 3D Tosca code; simulation.
• Online Access: https://ojs.cvut.cz/ojs/index.php/ap/article/view/1737
• ISSN: 1210-2709; 1805-2363

Laser-generated plasmas were obtained in high vacuum by irradiating micrometric thin films (Au, Au/Mylar, Mylar) with the Asterix laser at the PALS Research Infrastructure in Prague. Irradiations at the fundamental wavelength, 300 ps pulse duration, at intensities up to about 1016W/cm2, enabled ions to be accelerated in forward direction with kinetic energies of the order of 2 MeV/charge state. Protons above 2 MeV were obtained in the direction orthogonal to the target surface in selffocusing conditions. Gold ions up to about 120 MeV and 60+ charge state were detected. Ion collectors and semiconductor SiC detectors were employed in time-of-flight arrangement in order to measure the ion velocities as a function of the angle around the normal direction to the target surface. A Thomson parabola spectrometer (TPS) with a multi-channel-plate detector was used to separate the different ion contributions to the charge emission in single laser shots, and to get information on the ion charge states, energy and proton acceleration. TPS experimental spectra were compared with accurate TOSCA simulations of TPS parabolas.