Table 1 Quantities related to protons obtained in the 2D simulation scan (time selection is explained in Sect. 3) changing foam and substrate thicknesses and in the 3D simulation with nanostructured foam at 300 fs. The reported quantities are the maximum energy \(E_{p}^{\mathrm{max}}\) reached by the protons, their mean energy \(\bar{E}_{p}\) above 0.5 MeV, their temperature \(T_{p}\) coming from the exponential fitting of the spectra, the conversion efficiency η from laser energy to proton energy, and the estimate \(N_{p}\) of the total number of accelerated protons per shot above 0.5 MeV
From: Towards compact laser-driven accelerators: exploring the potential of advanced double-layer targets
Foam thickness | \(E_{p}^{\mathrm{max}}\) (MeV) | \(\bar{E}_{p}\) [MeV] | \(T_{p}\) [MeV] | Efficiency η [-] | Np [-] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Substrate Thickness = 0.2 μm | |||||
No foam | 5.86 | 1.32 | 1.09 | 0.52% | 5.12â‹…109 |
2 μm | 26.24 | 3.44 | 5.03 | 5.48% | 2.07⋅1010 |
4 μm | 31.05 | 4.2 | 6.04 | 8.31% | 2.44⋅1010 |
8 μm | 22.83 | 3.88 | 4.07 | 7.28% | 2.57⋅1010 |
Substrate Thickness = 0.6 μm | |||||
No foam | 4.56 | 1.26 | 1.03 | 0.25% | 2.58â‹…109 |
2 μm | 21.63 | 3.55 | 5.54 | 3.64% | 1.33⋅1010 |
4 μm | 24.04 | 4.41 | 5.91 | 5.72% | 1.76⋅1010 |
8 μm | 18.73 | 3.93 | 4.16 | 5.33% | 1.69⋅1010 |
Substrate Thickness = 2 μm | |||||
No foam | 2.69 | 0.91 | 0.61 | 0.07% | 1.0â‹…109 |
2 μm | 17.93 | 3.27 | 4.13 | 2.61% | 1.04⋅1010 |
4 μm | 19.03 | 4.02 | 5.24 | 4.58% | 1.63⋅1010 |
8 μm | 15.92 | 3.60 | 3.62 | 4.50% | 1.48⋅1010 |
Nanostructured 3D (Substrate Thickness = 0.2 μm) | |||||
4 μm | 15.05 | 1.85 | 2.20 | 4.58% | 4.08⋅1010 |