Browsing by Author "Kuk, Donghoon"
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Item Experimental studies of laser driven proton acceleration from ultrashort and highly intense laser pulse interaction with overdense plasma(2014-12) Kuk, Donghoon; Ditmire, Todd R.The generation of high current multi-MeV protons and ions by irradiation of short pulse high intense laser on an ultra-thin target has been observed and subjected great interest in recent. When ultra-thin overdense target is irradiated by focused ultraintense laser pulse, hot electrons are generated by various mechanisms and they generate energetic ion beams. In TNSA, a quasi-electrostatic field is produced on the target rear surface when the the laser pulse interacts with overdense target, driving hot electrons go torward the target rear surface. However, this mechanism results in a range of field gradients leading to a broad proton energy distribution typically. To overcome the issue, an alternative accelration mechanism has been presented to achieve the quasi-monoenergetic proton acceleration and the mechanism is called Radiation Pressure Acceleration. In the RPA, the radiation pressure push electrons into the target smoothly and setting up an electrostatic field by the laser pressure. In this thesis, we study two alternative experimental methods for the quasi-monoenergetic proton acceleration and find experimental feasibility of the presented methods from other research groups.Item Proton acceleration experiment by high intensity laser pulse interaction with solid density target at the Texas Petawatt Laser Facility(2011-12) Kuk, Donghoon; Ditmire, Todd R.; Keto, JohnIn recent, high intensity laser pulse interaction with solid density matter has been studied in several laboratory and facilities. Multi-MeV proton and ion beams from plasma produced by this interaction is one important application research area of HEDP. In this thesis, the basic theory of hot electron generation associated with proton acceleration will be introduced. A basic proton acceleration mechanism called TNSA will be introduced with supplemental free plasma expansion model. To investigate proton acceleration at the Texas Petawatt Facility, the experimental set up and target alignmen will be introduced in the chapter 5. While the analysis of data acquired from this experiment is still unfinished, a brief result with RCF image will be introduced in chapter 6.