Acceleration of heavy Ions to MeV/nucleon Energies by Ultrahigh-Intensity Lasers

In this thesis the acceleration of heavy ions to multi-MeV energies
by means of a laser is demonstrated for the first time. Using an
ultrahigh-intensity laser, with focal intensities exceeding 5 x
10^19 W/cm^2, the laser-plasma interaction becomes relativistic and
a strong electron current is driven in laser direction. These
relativistic electrons penetrate the target foil and set up a
quasistatic electric field at the target rear surface. This field
is of the order of TV/m and accelerated Fluorine ions to energies
of 100 MeV, i.e. about 10 % light speed, within 300 fs. While a
normal accelerator needs a distance of roughly 100 m to reach these
energies, the laser-driven acceleration achieves this in about 10
microns. Within the scope of this work, a technique was developed
to select a specific ion species. The energy spectra and charge
state distributions of several different species were measured and
used to analyze the acceleration mechanism. The measured results
were than compared to computer simulations to gain detailed
information on the strength and timescale of the accelerating
fields.