Review of studies of ion streams produced by short high-intensity laser pulses performed by the IPPLM team

The paper presents a review of recent studies of plasmas produced in various experimental conditions performed mainly at the IPPLM and partially at the PALS Joint Research Laboratory ASCR in Prague in an international cooperation. These investigations were directed towards the clarification of the physical processes in such plasmas as well as at the optimization of sources of multi-charged ions for various applications. A 1-ps terawatt Nd:glass laser system (pulse energy up to 1 J, wavelength: 1053 nm, power density up to 1017 W/cm2) was employed for the experiments carried out at the IPPLM in Warsaw. Also, an option of this system operating with the 0.5 ns pulse (power density up to 1014 W/cm2) for comparative studies was used. In common experiments at the PALS JRL in Prague we used the PALS iodine laser system producing up to 1.2 kJ in a 0.4 ns pulse at 1315 nm wavelength or 0.25 kJ at 438 nm (third harmonic) wavelengths. The time-of-flight measuring systems namely: different ion collectors and an electrostatic ion energy analyzer were employed as main diagnostic methods. The properties of ion emission were investigated at various experimental conditions with the use of different massive and thin foil targets.