UCL Promotors : Alain Cornet and Pierre Defrance
UCL Collaborators : Laurent Francis (ICTEAM)
External collaborations : Daniel Houde (U. Sherbrooke, Canada)
Funding : IISN, Région Wallonne, collaboration Wallonie-Québec
Multi-terawatt laser interaction with thin sheets of matter is a promising way to produce good quality fast ions beams. Focused laser pulses from high intensity “table top” laser systems are generating high intense electric fields (1012Vm-1) near the surface of impacted thin foils. A process has been identified where accelerated layers of electrons are extracting low mass ions and accelerating them to some tens of MeV (Target Normal Sheet Acceleration TNSA). The group is involved in the experimental study of energy distributions of accelerated protons using structured targets. Experiments are made on ALLS laser facility (INRS Montreal) through cooperation with USherbrooke.