Are Two Lasers Better Than One? Double Pulse Enhanced TNSA with High Z-Targets

Despite advances in ultra-intense laser technology, industrial and engineering applications of laser-driven ion sources remain elusive because of the unfavorable scaling of ion kinetic energy with laser intensity and other challenges. One potential method for increasing proton kinetic energy and conversion efficiency to protons is by using the constructive interference between two, equal intensity laser pulses to increase the effective intensity on target. We present results from an experiment at the Jupiter Laser Facility's (JLF) Titan laser. We split the Titan beam into two beams and we experimented with irradiating the target with approximately 50 J total of laser energy through both beams, or sending the 50 J through a single beam. RCF stacks were used to characterize the protons while three electron-proton-positron spectrometers (EPPS) were used to characterize the electron temperature. We find some evidence that proton acceleration was enhanced in the split pulse configuration. We also present simulation results which qualitatively confirm this result.