Creation of Intense Ion Beams with Short-pule Lasers and their Ability to Heat Matter

Proton and light ion beams driven by a relativistically intense laser (>1018 W/cm2) can deposit high power throughout a sample. This approach is promising for creation of warm dense matter platforms and could be the fast heating pathway in a Fast Ignition Inertial Confinement Fusion configuration if scaled up to 10s of kJ drivers. With existing facilities reaching the multi-kJ scale, we study many of the aspects of proton heating including beam focusing, conversion efficiency, and energy deposition. The protons can be focused by a 100 GV/m electric field on the target which we have demonstrated experimentally and studied computationally. When the intense focused beam enters a sample it stops and heats it in a very dynamic way. We have measured proton stopping using spectrometers, and we have an ongoing effort to improve characterization of the heated sample. This talk will also briefly cover some of our first shots in integrated implosion + heating configurations as well as acceleration of low- to mid-Z ions.