Kar, S: Application of MeV Laser Driven Proton Beams

Thanks to the rapid developments in the high power short pulse laser technology, laser plasma interaction has become a vibrant and strongly evolving area of science with unprecedented expansion of its horizon. Among the most significant achievements, the laser driven energetic (several tens of MeV) proton beam from solid target has made an benchmark due to their exceptional properties such as high laminarity, brightness and short burst duration. Therefore it gave birth to new avenues of research in the pursuit of their widespread applications in healthcare, industry and scientific research. The book presents a blend of the ongoing experimental and computational research works, devoted to three major application areas of the multi-MeV proton beam. They are - focussing of the proton beam for warm dense matter production via isochoric heating; proton radiography of dense matter to diagnose the probed object density profile; and proton imaging of transient electric and magnetic fields involved in a intense laser-plasma interaction. Several experimental and computational tools employed for the research work are discussed.