By focusing proton beams using high-intensity lasers, a team of scientists have discovered a new way to heat material and create new states of matter in the laboratory.
Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Hemoltz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf of Germany; Technische Universitat Darmstadt of Germany, and General Atomics of San Diego unveiled new findings about how proton beams can be used in myriad applications.
Using the Trident sub-picosecond laser at Los Alamos, the team generated and focused a proton beam using a cone-shaped target. The protons were found to have unexpected curved trajectories due to the large electric fields in the beam. A sheath electric field also channeled the proton beam through the cone tip, substantially improving the beam focus.
"These results agree well with our particle simulations and provide the physics basis for many future applications," said Mark Foord, one of the LLNL scientists on the team.
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