Quasi-monoenergetic deuteron acceleration via boosted coulomb explosion by reflected picosecond laser pulse
- Tianyun Wei
- Zechen Lan
- Yasunobu Arikawa
- Yanjun Gu
- Takehito Hayakawa
- Alessio Morace
- Ryuya Yamada
- Kohei Yamanoi
- Koichi Honda
- Masaki Kando
- Nobuhiko Nakanii
- Seyed Reza Mirfayzi
- Sergei Vladimirovich Bulanov
- Akifumi Yogo
2026-05-29
Generation of quasi-monoenergetic ions by intense laser is one of long-standing goals in laser-plasma physics. However, existing laser-driven ion acceleration schemes often produce broad energy spectra and limited control over ion species. Here we propose the acceleration mechanism, boosted Coulomb explosion, initiated by a standing wave, which is formed in a pre-expanded plasma by the interference between a continuously incoming main laser pulse and the pulse reflected by a solid target, where the pre-expanded plasma is formed from a thin layer on the solid target by a relatively strong pre-pulse. This mechanism produces a persistent Coulomb field on the target front side with field strengths on the order of TV/m for picoseconds. We experimentally demonstrate generation of quasi-monoenergetic deuterons up to 50 MeV using an in-situ D 2 O-deposited target. Our results show that the peak energy can be tuned by the laser pulse duration.