Accounting for the Edge Effects of Electric and Magnetic Fields in the Spectroscopy of Ion Flows from Relativistic Laser Plasma

Abstract

Analytical formulas are obtained that describe stationary fields in magnetic and electric separators of charged particles of ion spectrometers of two types taking edge effects into account: a time-of-flight spectrometer with magnetic separation and a Thomson mass spectrometer. Based on a numerical solution of the equation of ion motion in magnetic and electric fields taking the edge effects into account, it is shown that calculation using the effective constant-field method without taking the edge effects into account leads to errors not only in determining the ion energy, but also in the estimation of the mass and charge compositions of the ion flow, which is formed under irradiation of solid targets with femtosecond laser pulses of relativistic intensity. On the basis of the developed approaches, experimental data that were obtained using spectrometers of both types at a laser radiation intensity of above 10¹⁸ W/cm² on targets are interpreted and it is shown that the developed algorithms provide their fast and efficient analysis.