Collective acceleration of laser-produced ions

The collective acceleration of heavy ions (C, Al, Fe) from a laser produced plasma to energies in excess of 10 MeV/amu has been observed experimentally. In the experiments, an intense relativistic electron beam (1.2 MeV, 30 kA, 30 ns) is injected through an anode aperture into a downstream drift region. Ions to be accelerated are produced by firing a Q-switched ruby laser (0.3–15 J, 15 ns) at a target material located immediately downstream of the anode aperture. Accelerated ion energies are measured by time of flight, range-energy, and Thomson spectrometer techniques.