Collaborative Research: Enhancing Laser Based Ion Sources with High Data Rate Techniques

As laser technology continues to improve, it is important to investigate how laser interactions with matter can be better controlled and optimized to develop new applications. This research project will investigate two methods to enhance intense laser interactions in order to accelerate protons and ions. One method involves using a machine learning algorithm, which is a form of artificial intelligence, to control the laser system.

The other method involves splitting the laser pulse into two beams and using the constructive interference to as much as double the intensity on target without requiring additional laser energy. The goal of both methods is to maximize the numbers and the energies of the protons and ions ejected from intense laser interactions. The intellectual products of this research may have a profound impact on efforts to use intense laser systems to perform proton radiography for a variety of biomedical, industrial, and defense purposes.

The project will support several graduate and undergraduate students, and its members will be actively involved in several efforts to increase cultural, socioeconomic, and gender diversity in STEM.

There is great potential for intense laser systems to become a useful source of energetic ions for a variety of scientific and engineering applications, but the properties of laser accelerated protons and ions are typically far from ideal and the peak ion energy scales weakly with laser intensity. This project will address these problems by investigating two complementary techniques to enhance and control laser interactions with solid density targets.

Specifically, machine learning methods will be used to control multiple experimental parameters on intense laser systems to examine how much optimization and control over the resulting proton spectrum can be achieved. The other technique involves using the constructive interference of two laser pulses to significantly increase the effective intensity and absorption of laser light.

Both techniques leverage high repetition rate laser systems such as the kHz repetition rate Extreme Light intense laser system at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which will be involved in this project. Particle-in-Cell simulations will be performed to better understand optimal conditions for ion acceleration and to understand the physics of why the double pulse technique is so effective.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.