| Paper | Title | Page |
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| THAY04 | Review of high-brightness proton and ion acceleration using pulsed lasers | 319 |
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In the last few years, intense research has been conducted on laser-accelerated ion sources and their applications. These sources have exceptional properties, i.e. high brightness and high spectral cut-off, high directionality and laminarity, short burst duration. We have shown that for proton energies >10 MeV, the transverse and longitudinal emittance are respectively <0.004 mm-mrad and <10-4 eV-s, i.e. at least 100-fold and may be as much as 104-fold better than conventional accelerators beams. Thanks to these properties, these sources allow for example point-projection radiography with unprecedented resolution. They also open new opportunities for ion beam generation and control, and could stimulate development of compact ion accelerators for many applications. We have shown [*] that there is an optimum in the laser pulse duration of ~200 fs-1 ps, with a needed laser energy level of 30 to 100 J, in order to achieve e.g. 200 MeV energy protons. Also, as, for such applications beam control is an essential requirement, we have developed [**] an ultra-fast laser-triggered micro-lens that allows tuneable control of the beam divergence as well as energy selection.
[*] J. Fuchs et al., Nature Physics 2, 48 (2006). |