Ion Acceleration Experiment with the High Intensity, High Contrast J-KAREN-P Laser System

Abstract

We report on the status of ion acceleration carried out with the J-KAREN-P laser facility at National Institute for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology (QST) during the commissioning periods of the system. The system can provide PW peak power at 0.1 Hz on target and can deliver short pulses with an energy of 30 J and pulse duration of 30 fs after compression with a contrast level of better than 1012. The current experiment was performed with the laser intensity of up to ~5 × 1021 Wcm‒2 with and energy of ~9 J on target. The interaction with a 5-μm stainless steel tape target provides electrons with a typical temperature of more than 10 MeV and energetic proton beams with typical maximum energies of 40 MeV with good reproducibility. The protons are accelerated in the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration regime, which is suitable for many applications suitable for many applications including an injector for medical use, which is one of our objectives.