Laser-driven ION (LION) acceleration at the centre for advanced laser applications (CALA)

Irradiating thin foils with very intense laser pulses results in the emission of swift ion bunches. These laser-accelerated ions exhibit properties that substantially differ from conventionally accelerated particles. A large number of a variety of ion species distributed over a broad energy and angular spectrum are confined to very short bunch durations and are sought to enable novel applications [1]. For many years these properties have been studied and optimized mainly by investigating the interaction process of intense lasers pulses with plasmas in exemplary experiments [2].