Thomson parabola spectrometry as diagnostics of fast ion emission from laser-generated plasmas

Abstract

High intensity lasers produce hot plasmas when irradiating solid matter in vacuum. Properties of the generated plasmas depend strongly on the laser and target parameters and on the target irradiation geometry. Physical characterization of such non-equilibrium plasmas can be performed by using different fast diagnostic techniques based on the detection of energetic charge particles and photons. Thomson parabolas recorded in single laser shots, bring a lot of information about the plasma ion emission, such as the charge-to-mass ratio, ion energy and charge state distributions, furnishing the data necessary for understanding physical mechanisms involved in the plasma dynamics. The ion measurements performed at intensities of the order of 10¹⁶ W/cm², at which thin samples were irradiated by using the iodine laser at PALS laboratory in Prague in target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) conditions, are presented and discussed.