Laser polarization dependence of proton emission from a thin foil target irradiated by a 70 fs, intense laser pulse

Abstract

A study of proton emission from a 3-μm -thick Ta foil target irradiated by p -, s -, and circularly polarized laser pulses with respect to the target plane has been carried out. Protons with energies up to 880 keV were observed in the target normal direction under the irradiation by the p -polarized laser pulse, which yielded the highest efficiency for proton emission. In contrast, s - and circularly polarized laser pulses gave the maximum energies of 610 and 680 keV, respectively. The difference in the maximum energy between the p - and s -polarized cases was associated with the difference between the sheath fields estimated from electron spectra. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.