M. Borghesi, S. Kar, R. Prasad, F. K. Kakolee, K. Quinn, H. Ahmed, G. Sarri, B. Ramakrishna, B. Qiao, M. Geissler, S. Ter-Avetisyan, M. Zepf, G. Schettino, B. Stevens, M. Tolley, A. Ward, J. Green, P. Foster, C. Spindloe, P. Gallegos, A.. Robinson, D. Neely, D. Carroll, O. Tresca, X. Yuan, M. Quinn, P. McKenna, N. Dover, C. Palmer, J. Schreiber, Z. Najmudin, I. Sari, M. Kraft, M. Merchant, J. C. Jeynes, K. Kirkby, F. Fiorini, D. Kirby, S. Green
In view of their properties, laser-driven ion beams have the potential to be employed in innovative applications in the
scientific, technological and medical areas. Among these, a particularly high-profile application is particle therapy for
cancer treatment, which however requires significant improvements from current performances of laser-driven
accelerators. The focus of current research in this field is on developing suitable strategies enabling laser-accelerated
ions to match these requirements, while exploiting some of the unique features of a laser-driven process. LIBRA is a
UK-wide consortium, aiming to address these issues, and develop laser-driven ion sources suitable for applicative
purposes, with a particular focus on biomedical applications. We will report on the activities of the consortium aimed to
optimizing the properties of the beams, by developing and employing advanced targetry and by exploring novel
acceleration regimes enabling production of beams with reduced energy spread. Employing the TARANIS Terawatt
laser at Queen's University, we have initiated a campaign investigating the effects of proton irradiation of biological
samples at extreme dose rates (> 109 Gy/s).
Radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) theoretically may have great potential to revolutionize the study of laserdriven
ion accelerators due to its high conversion efficiency and ability to produce high-quality monoenergetic ion
beams. However, the instability issue of ion acceleration has been appeared to be a fundamental limitation of the
RPA scheme. To solve this issue is very important to the experimental realization and exploitation of this new
scheme. In our recent work, we have identified the key condition for efficient and stable ion RPA from thin foils
by CP laser pulses, in particular, at currently available moderate laser intensities. That is, the ion beam should
remain accompanied with enough co-moving electrons to preserve a local "bunching" electrostatic field during
the acceleration. In the realistic LS RPA, the decompression of the co-moving electron layer leads to a change
of local electrostatic field from a "bunching" to a "debunching" profile, resulting in premature termination of
acceleration. One possible scheme to achieve stable RPA is using a multi-species foil. Two-dimensional PIC
simulations show that 100 MeV/u monoenergetic C6+ and/or proton beams are produced by irradiation of a
contaminated copper foil with CP lasers at intensities 5 × 1020W/cm2, achievable by current day lasers.
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