7th International Conference on Matter and Radiation at Extremes (ICMRE2024)

Extreme intensities above 10²³ W/cm² are envisaged to be achieved at the ELI-NP facility [1]. We show that the interaction of a laser with an intensity of 10²³ W/cm² (the normalized laser field amplitude a₀ = 215) and 5x10²³ W/cm² (a₀ = 481) with a plastic micro-cone target can lead to direct laser acceleration of electrons, proton shock acceleration and γ photon creation. We perform three-dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations by using the SMILEI code [2]. Also, it is noticeable that for a laser intensity of 5x10²³ W/cm² and using micro-cones we can obtain protons accelerated to the highest energy twice the maximum energy reached by the protons in the case of a foil.

We conclude that a plastic micro-cone is a very good candidate to be used for secondary sources optimization at the interaction with ultra-high intensities pulses that will b eavailable at ELI-NP.