Protons Acceleration by CO2 Laser Pulses and Perspectives for Medical Applications

Abstract

The acceleration of electrons with the high electric fields generated in a plasma by a very intense laser pulse was proposed over forty years ago [Tajima & Dawson (1979)], but only the advent of the chirped pulse amplification CPA [Mourou et al. (2006)] allowed to increase the laser power and intensity up to the required values. The continuous progress, since a decade, of compact Ti:Sa lasers allowed 1 GeV good quality electron beams to be generated [Leemans et al. (2006)]. The optical acceleration of protons and ions has been also actively investigated. The highest energy of protons, 60 MeV, has been reached with short high energy pulses of Nd:Yag lasers, developed for inertial fusion [Snavely (2000)]. With compact ultrashort Ti:Sa laser pulses intensities of 1021 W/cm2 are reached and proton beams with energy up to a few tens of MeV are obtained [Zeil et al. (2010)].