Interaction of intense laser pulses with overdense targets such as foils, foams, and liquid films can lead to high-energy proton and ion acceleration. This simulation shows acceleration occurring in the Magnetic Vortex Acceleration Regime.
Laser light illuminates a BELLA Center LaserNetUS experiment that uses ultrafast X-rays and electrons simultaneously for “multi-messenger” studies of a shockwave’s effect on water, which behaves much like an inertial confinement fusion target. Very short (trillionth-of-a-second) and extremely bright pulses of electromagnetic, electron, and proton radiation enable the study of ultrafast, complex processes in inertial fusion plasmas. The generated proton beams are also of interest for fast-ignition studies in inertial-confinement fusion.
The Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center enables these studies through interactions of ultra-intense laser pulses with plasmas, generating bursts of radiation and accelerating charged particles. These interactions produce electric-field gradients more than three orders of magnitude higher than those of conventional radiofrequency accelerators, making laser-plasma accelerators proportionally smaller. The BELLA Petawatt and Hundred Terawatt Thomson lasers are part of LaserNetUS, a user network spanning North America providing access to laser systems for high-energy-density science and fusion research.
Laser light illuminates a BELLA Center LaserNetUS experiment that uses ultrafast X-rays and electrons simultaneously for “multi-messenger” studies of a shockwave’s effect on water, which behaves much like an inertial confinement fusion target.
Laser pulses from the BELLA Petawatt laser are tightly focused and cleaned with plasma mirrors, enabling research into advanced proton acceleration that promises to drive proton energies from tens of MeV to more than 100 MeV using novel targets. In addition to the high-energy proton bunches, electrons, X-rays, gamma rays, and muons routinely generated by the BELLA lasers, these high-energy proton bunches Such high-energy proton bunches, in addition to electrons, X-rays, gamma rays, and muons that are also routinely generated using the BELLA lasers, can be used to probe fields and density structures created in fusion plasmas with high temporal and spatial resolution. The BELLA Center develops AI-guided, high-repetition-rate targetry and laser-beam steering with excellent positioning and timing precision to unlock the full potential of these laser-driven radiation sources for fusion research.
