Abstract
The acceleration of ions in the interaction of high intensity laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated with particle-in-cell simulations. For circular polarization of the laser pulses, high-density ion bunches moving into the plasma are generated at the laser-plasma interaction surface. A simple analytical model accounts for the numerical observations and provides scaling laws for the ion bunch energy and generation time as a function of pulse intensity and plasma density.
- Received 2 November 2004
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.165003
©2005 American Physical Society