Cavity pressure acceleration: An efficient laser-based method of production of high-velocity macroparticles

We propose an efficient method of accelerating macroparticles to high velocities, which employs pressure of the plasma produced by a focused pulsed high-power laser beam inside a cavity-type target. That is why we have called it the cavity pressure acceleration (CPA) scheme. The method was tested during our experiments at the Prague Asterix Laser System, the results of which are reported here. They show that CPA makes it possible to accelerate both light and heavy macroparticles in arbitrary direction, with the acceleration efficiency far exceeding that achieved upto now by using the classic ablative acceleration scheme. High velocities of the macroparticles (foil fragments) produced and possibility of accelerating even rather heavy macroparticles are promising from the point of view of impact fusion studies, of the impact fast ignition, in particular.