A laser driven acceleration method

Traditional ion accelerators use quite large buildings and complex/expensive instruments to produce mono-energetic ion beams with energies of the order of 100 keV/nucleon and current densities of the order of 1 mA/cm². Powerful pulsed lasers irradiating in vacuum solid targets produce hot and very dense non-equilibrium plasmas with high average charge state. A laser ion source (LIS) can be obtained with a pulsed laser at intensities of the order of 10¹⁰ W/cm² or upper, with pulse duration of the order of few ns and repetition rate of the order of 10 Hz. High directivity electric fields are generated inside the non equilibrium plasmas with intensities higher than 10 MV/cm. Ions are emitted from the plasma in the direction of the electric field with energies of the order of tens or hundreds eV/nucleon, depending on the laser intensity. Emitted ions have a Boltzmann ion energy distribution depending on the ion charge state. Ion post-acceleration and analysis by means of high electric and magnetic fields can be provided.