Sources of highly stripped ions

The condition that n τ, the product of density and containment time, is sufficiently high to strip ions almost to their `steady-state' degree of ionization can be achieved in certain high-density pulsed devices of thermonuclear interest. One such plasma, that produced when a solid pellet is irradiated by a Q -spoiled laser beam, looks promising as a source of highly stripped ions. Present calculations show that the ions could be extracted for acceleration experiments with a mean charge exceeding ten.