Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

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Divergence and direction control of laser-driven energetic proton beam

using a disk-solenoid target
To cite this article before publication: Ke Jiang et al 2019 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion in press https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab1d00

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Page 1 of 11 AUTHOR SUBMITTED MANUSCRIPT - PPCF-102317.R2

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Divergence and direction control of laser-driven

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11 energetic proton beam using a disk-solenoid target
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14 K. Jiang1,2 , C. T. Zhou2,3,4,∗ , T. W. Huang2 , L. B. Ju2,3 , C. N.
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Wu1,2 , L. Li2,4 ,H. Zhang2 , S. Z. Wu2 , T. X. Cai2 , B. Qiao2,4 , M.

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17 Y. Yu2 , and S. C. Ruan2,3
18 1
Graduate School, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Beijing 100088, People’s
19 Republic of China
20 2
Center for Advanced Material Diagnostic Technology, Shenzhen Technology
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University, Shenzhen 518118, People’s Republic of China
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Republic of China
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College of Applied Technology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, People’s

HEDPS, Center for Applied Physics and Technology and School of Physics, Peking
University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
E-mail: zcangtao@sztu.edu.cn
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30 Abstract. A scheme for controlling the divergence and direction of energetic proton
31 beam driven by intense laser pulse is proposed. Simulations show that a precisely
32 directed and collimated proton bunch can be produced by a sub-picosecond laser pulse
33 interacting with a target consisting of a thin solid-density disk foil with a solenoid coil
34 attached to its back at the desired angle. It is found that two partially overlapping
35 sheath fields are induced. As a result, the accelerated protons are directed parallel to
36 the axis of the solenoid, and their spread angle is also reduced by the overlapping sheath
37 fields. The proton properties can thus be controlled by manipulating the solenoid
38 parameters. Such highly directional and collimated energetic protons are useful in the
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39 high-energy-density as well as medical sciences.

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5 1. Introduction
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7 Energetic laser-driven ion source with unique features, such as small device size and high
8 brightness, is useful in radiography [1], warm-dense-matter generation [2], fast ignition
9

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10 of fusion core [3], isotope generation [4], tumor therapy [5], brightness enhancement
11 for conventional accelerators [6], etc. The target-normal sheath acceleration (TNSA)
12 mechanism [7] is widely investigated because of its undemanding laser and target
13
14 parameter requirements [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. In TNSA, an intense laser interacts
15 with a target, generating hot relativistic electrons that penetrate through the latter
16

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and establish in the backside vacuum a TV/m sheath electric field, which accelerates
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18 the target-back ions to multi-MeV energies [14]. However, the intrinsic target-normal
19 direction and divergence of the TNSA protons limit their applications.
20 Different methods have been proposed for collimation and manipulation of the
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22 TNSA protons, including the use of structured targets [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,
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23, 24, 25, 26], electrostatic lens [27, 28], laser prepulse [29], oblique laser incidence
[30, 31, 32], etc. In particular, the recently proposed scheme, by Kar et al. [18, 33]
and Ahmed et al. [34, 35, 36], of using a solenoid attached to a disk target shows its
versatility and simultaneous focusing, energy spectrum selection and post-acceleration
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of TNSA protons. The scheme is based on the laser-excited electromagnetic field pulse
29
30 traveling along the coil. Nevertheless, simultaneously controlling the divergence angle
31 and the direction of the TNSA protons remains a challenge.
32 In this paper, we propose to attach a solenoid to the back of a thin disk target
33
34 at a certain angle to simultaneously collimate and guide the TNSA protons. Three
35 dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations show that a precisely directed proton
36 bunch with small divergence angle can be obtained. The result is attributed to a
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38 uniquely structured sheath field created by the hot electrons from the disk, and is
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39 therefore quite different from the electromagnetic-pulse-induced field usually observed

40 in the laser-target-interaction [18, 33, 34, 35, 36]. The results agree quite well with that
41
42 from an analytical model, which is also useful for tailoring the solenoid parameters in
43 order to produce well directed and collimated high-energy proton bunches under given
44 laser and target conditions.
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46
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47 2. Simulation setups
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49 The target configuration can be visualized in figure 1(a) for the electron and proton
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51 densities at t = 420 fs. The helical plasma-wire solenoid is attached to the back of the
52 disk at, for definitiveness, a ψ = 20◦ angle. The radius, length, and number of turns of
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53 the solenoid are rs = 3.5 µm, h = 10 µm,

54 p and n = 6, respectively. The coil wire is of
55 diameter 0.6 µm and total length l = n (2πrs )2 + (h/n)2 = 132 µm. The radius and
56 thickness of the disk are 6 µm and 1 µm, respectively. As proton source, a hydrogen dot
57 of thickness 0.5 µm and diameter 1 µm is placed at the center of the rear disk surface. In
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59 the 3D PIC simulations with EPOCH [37], the disk and the solenoid are Cu2+ plasma,
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21 Figure 1. The target structure and density isosurfaces from the 3D PIC simulations.
22 (a) Disk-solenoid target at t = 420 fs. The 3D electron and proton density isosurfaces
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are shown in gray and blue, respectively. The isovalues of the disk and solenoid
electrons are 6.12nc and 0.35nc , respectively, and the isovalue of the protons (from
the disk backside dot) is 0.01nc .The projection of the z = 0 plane at the bottom
shows the target electron density log10 (ne /nc ) (mainly yellow) and the proton density
log10 (np /nc ) (the well-defined light blue patch). The inset shows the angular density
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distribution of > 12 MeV protons in the relevant segment of the proton velocity
29 q
2 2 ) and the “radius”
30 space vp , where the “angle” is defined by arctan(vpz / vpx + vpy
31 by arctan(−vpy /vpx ). (b) Same as (a) but for simple disk target at t = 315 fs and the
32 isovalue of the protons being 0.0005nc . That is, the proton number density is much
33 lower than that in (a). (Some protons accelerated from the simple disk target have
34 higher energies, and at t = 420 fs they have already left the simulation box. Reduction
35 of the proton energies using structured targets has been discussed in Ref. [26].)
36
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38 at densities ni0 = 20nc and ne0 = 40nc , respectively. The density of the hydrogen dot
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40 is 1nc , where nc ∼ 1.1 × 1021 cm−3 /λ2L is the critical density, and λL = 1.06 µm is the
41 incident laser wavelength. To account for the laser prepulse, a 5 µm long preplasma of
42 density ne = ne0 exp(x/δ), where δ = 0.5 µm, is placed in front of the disk. We note that
43
44 due to limitation of our computing resource, the target density in the simulation is made
45 much lower than that of bulk solid copper. Such targets can be potentially fabricated
46 by ion-beam machining [38] of porous copper [39, 40]. Another possible route to access
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48 the density regime is to use the second harmonic of the laser to irradiate bulk copper
49 targets [41]. A y polarized Gaussian laser pulse of λL , intensity 2 × 1020 W/cm2 , waist
50 radius 3 µm, and duration 500 fs is normally incident from the left boundary at x = −8
51
52 µm. The laser has a flat-top temporal profile, with 3.5 fs rising time. The flat-top pulse
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53 is used for convenience, saving the simulation time and simplifying the analysis of the
54 hot electron propagation in the solenoid (see section 3). Simulations with a Gaussian
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56 pulse have also been carried out and they gave similar results. The simulation box is
57 23 × 16 × 16 µm3 , with 1143 × 795 × 795 grids. There are 7 macroparticles per cell for
58 the solenoid target and 30 for the hydrogen dot. As shown in figure 1(a), at t = 420 fs,
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5 a directed and well collimated proton bunch with cut-off energy > 20 MeV is generated.
6 The exit angle of protons with energy > 12 MeV is around 26◦ from the disk normal
7
in the (x, y) plane. In contrast, figure 1(b) shows that without the solenoid, the proton
8
9 beam propagates nearly normal to the target back with a considerably larger divergence

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10 angle and lower flux than the former.
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13 3. Simulation results and theoretical analysis
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15 As the intense laser pulse impinges on the target, hot electrons are generated at the
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17
front surface and directly accelerated by the laser to high speeds [42, 43]. They
18 can easily penetrate through the disk and establish immediately behind it as well as
19 around the surface of the solenoid wire an intense sheath electric field, roughly given by
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Eh ∼ Teh /(ers ) ∼ 0.86×1012 V/m, where Teh is the temperature of hot electrons and e is
22 the elementary charge [7]. This value agrees well with that from the simulation, as shown
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in figure 2(a). The time interval between the establishment of Eh on the first and last coil
of the solenoid can be roughly estimated as the time-of-flight of hot electrons through
the solenoid as h cos(ψ)/c = 31.3 fs. On the other hand, the electrons exiting the disk
at where the solenoid is attached can propagate in the solenoid wire (a conductor) and
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29
create around its surface a local sheath field with magnitude Et ∼ Tet /(eK) ≈ 2.4 × 1012
30 V/m, where Tet is the temperature of these secondary electrons and K the spatial scale
31 of their field. It takes much longer time for the establishing of Et than Eh , as the distance
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of electrons propagating in the solenoid wire is much larger than that of electrons flying
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34 through the solenoid. The establishment of Et on the last coil is roughly at l/c = 440
35 fs after the laser pulse impinging on the target. Thus Eh and Et partially overlap,
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and in the overlapped region the sheath field on the solenoid surface can be as high as
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38 Es = Eh + Et ≈ 3.3 × 1012 V/m. Both Eh and Et are roughly azimuthally symmetric
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39 with respect to the solenoid axis, the slight asymmetry is due to the tilted connection of
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the solenoid to the disk back. The normal (to the solenoid axis) components of both Eh
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42 and Es lead to a focusing force on the dot protons accelerated by the disk-back sheath
43 field, as shown in figures 2(a) and (b), so that instead of propagating normal to the disk
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back-surface, the protons are directed and collimated by the solenoid, as can be seen in
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46 figure 2(b).
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47 It is also necessary to consider the effect of the self-generated magnetic fields. The
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electron current in the solenoid wire is much larger than the Alfvén limit [45]. The
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50 return current induced on the wire surface gives rise to a strong longitudinal magnetic
51 field in the solenoid [46, 47]. Figures 2(c) and (d) show that the peak magnetic field
52 (on the solenoid axis) is Bk ∼ 1 × 104 T. The corresponding proton gyroradius is
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54 rpg ∼ mp vp⊥ /(eBk ) ≈ 15.7 µm, where mp and vp⊥ ∼ 0.05c are the proton rest mass and
55 transverse velocity component, respectively. Since rpg  rs , the magnetic field should
56 have little effect on the protons as can be seen in figure 2(e) for three typical proton
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58 trajectories resulted from single-particle simulations based on the time-dependent fields
59 obtained from PIC simulations. Thus, the direction and collimation of the proton bunch
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5 175 fs 350 fs
6 ×1010 V/m

7 5 (a) E⊥ (b)
Es 200
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without magnetic field
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36 Figure 2. Electric and magnetic field profiles on the z = 0 plane at t = 175 fs
37 and t = 350 fs. (a) and (b) E⊥ = Ex sin(ψ) + Ey cos(ψ) [V/m], and (c) and (d)
38 Bk = Bx cos(ψ) − By sin(ψ) [T]. The blue arrows in (a) and (c) show the positive
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39 directions of E⊥ and Bk , respectively. The black loops roughly outline the TNSA
40 proton bunch, and the black arrows show the leading front of the propagating electrons
41 in the solenoid wire. The green arrows in (a) and (b) show the regions dominated by
42
the sheath fields Eh and Es generated by the hot sheath electrons and the propagating
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solenoid electrons, respectively. (e) Several proton trajectories and their projections
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45 for with/without the self-generated magnetic field (red/black). The disk-back hot
46 electrons from the target front are relatively homogeneous and not shown for clarity.
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47 One can clearly see that the solenoid can effectively guide and collimate the TNSA
48 protons.
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51 are mainly determined by the electric fields Eh⊥ and Es⊥ .
52 It is thus of interest to see how Eh⊥ and Es⊥ affect the proton dynamics. Since the
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54 solenoid electrons propagate at near light speed, the distance between the field boundary
55 (i.e., the rough boundary between Eh⊥ and Es⊥ ) and the disk back-surface at t > T0
56 is Lbk (t) ∼ ch(t − T0 )/l, where T0 is the time when the electrons start to propagate in
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58 the solenoid wire. The protons are first accelerated to a velocity vp0 by the sheath field
59 at the disk rear from T0 to (T0 + tacc ), after which they are no longer accelerated. The
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5 parallel and transverse proton velocities are then vpk0 = vp0 cos(φ + ψ) = const. and
6 vp⊥0 = vp0 sin(φ + ψ), respectively, where φ is the divergence angle of the protons and ψ
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is the angle between the solenoid and the disk. Since protons with vpk0 ≤ ch/(l − ctacc )
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9 cannot cross the field boundary, the protons (hereafter referred to as proton 1) is thus

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10 mainly governed by Es⊥ (or Eh⊥ for those with small vp⊥ ). On the other hand, protons
11 (hereafter referred to as proton 2) with vpk0 > ch/(l − ctacc ) can cross the field boundary
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13 at t = T1 = T0 + tacc /(1 − ch/(lvpk0 )). Type 1 protons satisfy d2 L⊥ /dt2 = eEs⊥ /mp ,
14 where L⊥ is the distance between the proton and the solenoid axis. Assuming Es⊥
15 depends linearly on L⊥ , say, Es⊥ = −Es⊥ ,max L⊥ /rs , we obtain for t > T0 + tacc
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17 vp⊥0
L⊥ (t) = sin {ωs [t − (T0 + tacc )]} , (1)
18 ωs
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20 and
21 vp⊥ (t) = vp⊥0 cos {ωs [t − (T0 + tacc )]} , (2)
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|vp⊥ /vpk | ≤ tan(φ + ψ).

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for proton 1, where ωs = eEs⊥ ,max /(mp rs ). Therefore, the exit angle for proton 1 is
centered along the ψ direction, with the divergence given by
(3)
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The dynamics of proton 2 for t ≤ T1 is similar to that of proton 1. However, at
29
30 t = T1 , proton 2 can cross the field boundary. Thereafter their motion is governed
31 by d2 L⊥ /dt2 = eEh⊥ /mp . Assuming again that Eh⊥ depends linearly on L⊥ , i.e.,
32 Eh⊥ = −Eh⊥ ,max L⊥ /rs , one obtains for proton 2
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34 L⊥ (t) = c1 cos[ωh (t − T1 )] + c2 sin[ωh (t − T1 )], (4)
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36 vp⊥ (t) = −c1 ωh sin[ωh (t − T1 )] + c2 ωh cos[ωh (t − T1 )], (5)
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38 where c1 = vp⊥0 sin(ωs τ )/ωs , c2 = vp⊥0 cos(ωs τ )/ωh , τ = chtacc /(lvpk0 − ch), and
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39 p
40 ωh = eEh⊥ ,max /(mp rs ). Accordingly, the exit angle of the type 2 protons for t > T1 is
41 centered at ψ, with the divergence given by
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43 |vp⊥ /vpk | ≤ f (η) tan(φ + ψ), (6)
44 p
45 where f (η) = (Eh⊥ ,max /Es⊥ ,max ) sin2 η + cos2 η and η = ωs τ . Since f (η) ≤ 1, the
46 divergence of the type 2 protons is reduced after they cross the field boundary.
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Figure 3(a) shows the trajectories of the two proton types. Although E⊥ also
48
49 evolves with time, only its distribution at t = 259 fs is displayed in the background as a
50 reference. Note that at this moment proton 2 is located at the field boundary, agreeing
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well with the boundary crossing time from the theory and shown in figure 3(b). We
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53 see that, except immediately behind the disk, proton 1 experiences negative Eh⊥ at all
54 times. On the other hand, proton 2 is decelerated by Es⊥ when it moves away from the
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solenoid center axis and accelerated by Eh⊥ when it moves toward it.
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57 Figures 3(c) and (d) show the trajectories of proton 1 and proton 2 in the E⊥
58 versus L⊥ space. In (c) we can see that proton 1 experiences a larger E⊥ field on the
59
way back to the solenoid axis than that when it moves away from the latter, resulting
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(a) (b)
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× 10 V/m
6 10
300 proton boundary
7 2 field boundary
proton 2
8 150

L|| (µm)
1 proton 1

y(µm)
2 5 crossing point
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10 -1 L L⊥ L⊥ -150
11 -2 L
-300 0
12 2 4 6 8 0 100 200 300
13 x(µm) t(fs)
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Figure 3. (a) Local E⊥ [V/m] at t = 259 fs and the trajectories of protons 1 and
2 (magenta and blue curves, respectively). The dots on the trajectories mark their
positions at t = 259 fs. The black dashed line indicates the axis of the solenoid. (b)
Evolution of Lk of the protons. (c) E⊥ versus L⊥ as experienced by proton 1 at
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29 different times (see the color bar). The inset shows the evolution of the divergence
30 angle arctan(−vp⊥ /vpk ) (black curve) with respect to the solenoid axis. (d) Same as
31 (c), but for proton 2.
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34 (a) (b) (c)
35 1 1 1
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f (η)

f (η)

f (η)

0.8 0.8 0.8

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38 0.6 0.6 0.6
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0 10 20 0 10 20 0 3 6
40 n h(µm ) r s (µm)
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43 Figure 4. Dependence of f (η) on (a) n for h = 10 µm and rs = 3.5 µm, (b) h for
44 n = 6 and rs = 3.5 µm, (c) rs for n = 6 and h = 10 µm. Here, Eh⊥ ,max ≈ 0.86 × 1012
45 V/m, Es⊥ ,max ≈ 3.26 × 1012 V/m, φ = 5◦ , ψ = 20◦ , and tacc = 100 fs, respectively.
46
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48 in increase of its divergence angle. In contrast, in (d) we see that proton 2 experiences
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a smaller E⊥ on the way back to the axis than that when it moves away from it, so
51 that its divergence angle decreases with time. Accordingly, the divergence angle of the
52 TNSA proton bunch can be minimized by tailoring the solenoid parameters such that
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a large number of protons can cross the boundary between the two sheath fields.
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55 The parameter f (η) depends strongly on the solenoid parameters h, n, and rs . If
56 two of them are fixed, one can find the value of the third one in order to obtain the
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highest proton energy density, as shown in figure 4. For example, n = 6 should be
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59 the optimal number of turns if h = 10 µm and rs = 3.5 µm. Indeed, figure 5(a) from
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(a) 90° 1
(b) 90°
6 60° 50°
7 20° 30°
8 n= 4 30° 20°
0.5 n= 6
9 30° 180° 50° 0°

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n= 8 0
10 20°
11 0.5
0
12 1
13 0°
270°
14
15 Figure 5. Angular distribution of the normalized proton energy density for (a)
16 ψ = 20◦ , rs = 3.5 µm, h = 10 µm, and n = 4, 6, and 8, (b) ψ = 20◦ , rs = 3.5

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17
µm, h = 10 µm, and n = 6 (red curve); ψ = 30◦ , rs = 3.5 µm, h = 10 µm, and n = 7
18
(green curve); and ψ = 50◦ , rs = 3.5 µm, h = 10 µm, and n = 9 (blue curve). The
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20 solenoid parameters here have been optimized for each ψ.
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the simulation shows that with n = 6, the resulting proton energy density is higher
than that with n = 4 and n = 8. Figure 5(b) for the exit angle of the protons versus
the solenoid angle ψ under optimized conditions shows that the direction of the proton
bunch is well controlled if ψ ≤ 20◦ . However, both the directional preciseness and proton
energy density decrease with increase of ψ, which is also consistent with the relations
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29 (3) and (6) of the analytical model. This can be interpreted in terms of protons being
30
31 not deflected but reflected by the sheath field in the hollow of the solenoid. A large ψ
32 will lead to large proton divergence angle (with respect to the solenoid axis). Although
33 the uniquely structured sheath field can effectively reduce the divergence by a factor
34
35 f (η), large-angle directional control of protons is still challenging.
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38
4. Discussion
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40 In this section, comparison between our results and that of the earlier ones [18, 33, 34,
41 35, 36] is considered. The major difference is that in our simulations the electric field
42
43
around the solenoid is induced by sheath electrons leaving the target back as well as the
44 electrons propagating along the coil, and in the abovementioned works the electric field
45 is from the electromagnetic field pulse traveling along the coil. The different mechanisms
46
of the focusing field generation can be due to the following factors. Firstly, we are using
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47
48 µm-scaled target instead of mm-scaled one, so that the fast laser-plasma interaction here
49 are more important than the relatively slow charging and discharging in the capacitor-
50
like model. Secondly, the target in our simulation is not grounded, so that compensation
51
52 current is precluded. Thirdly, the solenoid in the simulation is ionized so that electrons
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53 can propagate almost freely in the coil, which is beneficial for the generation of the sheath
54
field around the coil. Finally, the use of relatively low-density target can enhance the
55
56 laser-to-electrons energy conversion efficiency, which is also beneficial for the generation
57 of the sheath field around the solenoid. Although the mechanisms are different, they
58
both provide effective control of the proton beam properties.
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5 5. Summary
6
7 In summary, we have proposed an effective scheme for collimation and directional
8 control of intense laser-driven protons using a disk-solenoid target. Our simulations
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10 show that two partially overlapping sheath fields are induced by the hot electrons and
11 they result in an electric field distribution that collimates and focuses the energetic
12 protons in the solenoid to its axis (instead of the target normal direction). In fact, the
13
14 divergence angle of the protons decreases when they cross the boundary region of the two
15 sheath fields. The simulation results are in good agreement with that of an analytical
16

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model of the proton dynamics, which is also useful for tailoring the solenoid parameters
17
18 for obtaining the desired proton energy and divergence angle. Highly collimated and
19 precisely directed proton bunches are desirable for radiography, tumor therapy, warm
20 dense matter generation, etc.
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Acknowledgements
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This work is supported by the National Key Program for R&D Research and
Development, Grant No. 2016YFA0401100; the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NNSFC), Grant Nos. 11575031, 11575298, and 11705120, the China
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29 Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2017M612708, the National ICF Committee of China.
30
31 K. J. would like to thank K. D. Xiao, C. Z. Xiao, R. Li, T. Y. Long, Y. C. Yang, R. X.
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