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The energy spectra and angular distributions of hot electrons as well as protons emitted from a 3-μm-thick tantalum foil irradiated by a 70-fs laser pulse with an intensity of ∼1018 W/cm2 are measured. Three hot electron flows are found, in the rear target normal, specular, and target surface directions. The angular distribution of hot electrons is found to depend on the polarization of the incident light. The measured energy spectrum of hot electrons in the rear target normal direction can explain the generated proton beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dependence on laser intensity and pulse duration in energetic proton acceleration by irradiation of ultrashort laser pulses on a 5 μm thick copper tape target was measured. The laser intensity was varied from 8.5×1017 W/cm2 to 1.1×1019 W/cm2, and the pulse duration from 55 fs to 400 fs. The maximum proton energy increased as the pulse duration was increased while the laser intensity was kept constant. The dependence of the maximum proton energy on laser intensity and pulse duration was in good agreement with an analytical plasma-expanding model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present experimental results on protons accelerated up to 950 keV from a 3-μm thick tantalum foil with a 133-nm thick polystyrene layer on its rear surface, irradiated with a laser pulse having the duration of 70 fs and the intensity of 2.7×1018 W/cm2. The energy distribution of fast protons was measured simultaneously with that of the hot-electrons from the rear surface. The proton yield from the polystyrene-coated target is about 10 times as high as that from the uncoated metal target. This enhancement of the proton yield is roughly proportional to the increase of hydrogen atoms given by the 133-nm thick polystyrene layer, assuming a contaminant layer of ∼10-nm thickness is on the metal surface without coating. This result shows that the polystyrene layer contributes to the yield enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We report the experimental results of proton acceleration as well as the simple one-dimensional model which explains our experimental data. The proton acceleration experiment is carried out with a TW short pulse laser irradiated on a tantalum thin-foil target (3 μm thickness) with an intensity of . Accelerated protons exhibit a typical energy spectrum with two quasi-Maxwellian components with a high energy cut-off. We can successfully explain the higher energy part as well as the cut off energy of the proton spectrum with the simple-one-dimensional model based on the strong charge separation regime, which is the extension of the model proposed originally by [M. Passoni et al., Phys. Rev. E 69 (2004) 026411]. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]