Lorenzo Fulgentini

• Italian National Research Council

Fast electron generation and transport in high-intensity laser–solid interactions induces X-ray emission and drives ion acceleration. Effective production of these sources hinges on an efficient laser absorption into the fast electron population and control of divergence as the beam propagates through the target. Nanowire targets can be employed to...

The interaction of ultraintense laser pulses with solids is largely affected by the plasma gradient at the vacuum-solid interface, which modifies the absorption and ultimately, controls the energy distribution function of heated electrons. A micrometer scale-length plasma has been predicted to yield a significant enhancement of the energy and weigh...

Trains of femtosecond pulses generated by a delay mask are considered for application to laser driven acceleration of particles. Here we show the results of numerical simulations and a preliminary experimental characterization of a two-pulse configuration.

In this paper we report the measurement of laser-driven proton acceleration obtained by irradiating nanotube array targets with ultrashort laser pulses at an intensity in excess of 10²⁰ W cm⁻². The energetic spectra of forward accelerated protons show a larger flux and a higher proton cutoff energy if compared to flat foils of comparable thickness....

We show that both the flux and the cutoff energy of protons accelerated by ultraintense lasers can besimultaneously increased when using targets consisting of thin layers of bundled nanochannels. Particle-in-cellsimulations suggest that the propagation of an electromagnetic field in the subwavelength channels occurs viaexcitation of surface plasmon...

High-repetition rate target development for proton acceleration by laser-plasma experiments is of great importance for future multidisciplinary applications, as envisioned at the ELIMAIA user beamline. The use of gas-jet based target, capable of high-repetition rate (10Hz and beyond) and typically used to generate under-critical density plasma, can...