Acceleration and transport of a focused laser-generated proton beams for fast-ignition

Abstract

Intense MeV proton beams have applications in medicine, material science and inertial fusion energy (IFE). Laser-accelerated proton beams can be generated and focused to exceptionally high intensities that are beneficial for these applications, especially proton fast ignition (pFI). In pFI, a focused proton beam with energy 20kJ, diameter <;40μm and mean energy of 10MeV needs to be produced from a hemisphere target and pass through the cone tip and surrounding plasma efficiently without distortion.