Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

We consider the Directed Coulomb Explosion regime of ion acceleration from ultra-thin double layer (high Z/low Z) mass limited targets. In this regime the laser pulse evacuated the electrons from the irradiated spot and accelerates the remaining ion core in the direction of the laser pulse propagation. Then the moving ion core explodes due to the excess of positive charge forming a moving charge separation field that accelerates protons from the second layer. The utilization of the mass limited targets increases the effectiveness of the acceleration. It is also shown that different parameters of laser-target configuration should be chosen to ensure optimal acceleration by either linearly polarized or circularly polarized pulses.