Direct High-Power Laser Acceleration of Ions for Medical Applications
Direct High-Power Laser Acceleration of Ions for Medical Applications
Theoretical investigations show that linearly and radially polarized multiterawatt and petawatt laser beams, focused to subwavelength waist radii, can directly accelerate protons and carbon nuclei, over micron-size distances, to the energies required for hadron cancer therapy. Ions accelerated by radially polarized lasers have generally a more favorable energy spread than …