Energetic Plasmas Produced by Laser Light on Solid Targets

Using two parallel simultaneously operating giant pulse lasers light intensities of 3 x 10 12 W/cm 2 were achieved in the focus on a LiD target. Ion energies in the expanding plasma stream of 4.5 keV were observed. Investigations on thin LiH targets showed, that the light pulse interacts only with a target layer several 10 -4 cm in thickness. The magnitude of the ion flux is estimated and compared with experimental observations.