Intense laser-driven proton beam energy deposition in compressed and uncompressed Cu foam

We investigated transport of intense proton beams from a petawatt laser in uncompressed or compressed Cu foam. The LFEX laser (1 kJ on target, 1.5 ps, 1053 nm, I \textgreater 2\texttimes 10$^{\mathrm{19}}$ W/cm$^{\mathrm{2}})$ irradiated a curved C foil to generate the protons. The foil was in an open cone 500 $\mu $m from the tip where the focused proton beam source was delivered to either of two Cu foam sample types: an uncompressed cylinder (1 mm L, 250 \textmu m $\phi )$, and a plastic-coated sphere (250 \textmu m $\phi )$ that was first driven by GXII (9 beams, 330 J/beam, 1.3 ns, 527 nm) to achieve similar $\rho \phi $ to the cylinder sample's $\rho $L as predicted by 2D radiation hydrodynamic simulations. Using magnetic spectrometers and a Thomson parabola, the proton spectra were measured with and without the Cu samples. When included, they were observed using Cu K-shell x-ray imaging and spectroscopy. This paper will present comparison of the experimentally measured Cu emission shape and proton spectrum changes due to deposition in the Cu with particle-in-cell simulations incorporating new stopping models.