Stabilized Radiation Pressure Dominated Ion Acceleration from Thin-foil Targets

We study transverse and longitudinal electron heating effects on the target stability and the ion spectra in the radiation pressure dominated regime of ion acceleration by means of multi dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Efficient ion acceleration occurs when the longitudinal electron temperature is kept as low as possible. However, tailoring of the transverse electron temperature is required in view of suppressing the transverse instability, which can keep the target structure intact for longer duration during the acceleration stage. We suggest using the surface erosion of the target to increase the transverse temperature, which improves both the final peak energy and the spectral quality of the ions in comparison with a normal flat target.