The acoustic pulse emitted from the Bragg peak of a laser-accelerated proton bunch focused into water has recently enabled the reconstruction of the bunch energy distribution. By adding three ultrasonic transducers and implementing a fast data analysis of the filtered raw signals, I-BEAT (Ion-Bunch Energy Acoustic Tracing) 3D now provides the mean bunch energy and absolute lateral bunch position in real-time and for individual bunches. Relative changes in energy spread and lateral bunch size can also be monitored. The latest experiments of the group around Prof. Jörg Schreiber where performed in collaboration with the group at the HZDR at their DRACO-Laser with proton bunch energies between 10 and 30 MeV and revealed sub-MeV and sub-mm resolution. In addition to this 3D bunch information, the signal strength correlates also with the absolute bunch particle number.
Please read the full paper here:
Original publication:
Three-dimensional acoustic monitoring of laser-accelerated protons in the focus of a pulsed-power solenoid lens
S. Gerlach, F. Balling, A. K. Schmidt, F. E. Brack, F. Kroll, J. Metzkes-Ng, M. Reimold, U. Schramm, M. Speicher, K. Zeil, K. Parodi, and J. Schreiber
High Power Laser Science and Engineering 11, e38 (2023)
