Abstract

We report on experimental observation of non-laminar proton acceleration modulated by strong magnetic field in laser irradiating micron-meter Aluminum targets. The results illustrate coexistence of ring-like and filamentation structures. We implement the knife edge method into the radiochromic film detector to map the accelerated beams, measuring source size of 30 ~ 110 μm for proton of > 5MeV. The diagnosis reveals that the ring-like profile originates from low energy protons far off the axis while the filamentation is from the near-axis high energy protons, exhibiting non-laminar features.

Particle-in-cell simulations reproduced the experimental results, showing that the short-term magnetic turbulence via Weibel instability and the long-term quasi-static annular magnetic field by the streaming electric current account for the measured beam profile. Our work provides direct mapping of laser-driven proton sources in the space-energy domain and reveals the non-laminar beam evolution at featured time scales.