• F. Nürnberg, B.G. Logan
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• I. Alber, K. Harres, M. Roth, M. Schollmeier
  TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt
• W.A. Barth, H. Eickhoff, I. Hofmann
  GSI, Darmstadt
• A. Friedman, D.P. Grote
  LLNL, Livermore, California

Ion acceleration from high-intensity, short-pulse laser irradiated thin foils has attracted much attention during the past decade. The emitted ion and, in particular, proton pulses contain large particle numbers (exceeding a trillion particles) with energies in the multi-MeV range and are tightly confined in time (< ps) and space (source radius a few micrometers). The generation of these high-current beams is a promising new area of research and has motivated pursuit of applications such as tabletop proton sources or pre-accelerators. Requirements for an injector are controllability, reproducibility and a narrow (quasi-monoenergetic) energy. However, the source provides a divergent beam with an exponential energy spectrum that exhibits a sharp cutoff at its maximum energy. The laser and plasma physics group of the TU Darmstadt, in collaboration with GSI and LBNL, is studying possibilities for transport and RF capture in conventional accelerator structures. First results on controlling laser-accelerated proton beams are presented, supported by WARP simulations.