Study of relative ion acceleration efficiencies from laser-solid interactions

The production of high-energy proton and ion beams has important applications in many areas of science including inertial fusion energy, laboratory astrophysics and compact particle sources for use in radiography and medical oncology. Utilizing laser plasma interactions (LPI) for such a source is garnering support from the various communities due to its potential to be compact and mobile. Recent studies have suggested that while increasing the laser intensity in LPIs is important for high energy ion production, moving to ultrashort (sub-picosecond) laser pulses may not be as effective as increasing the energy. An experimental study of this hypothesis will be presented, comparing the ion beam spectrum, charge and spatial quality using both magnetic spectrometers and film stacks.