Ion acceleration driven by superintense laser pulses is attracting an impressive and steadily increasing\ud effort. Motivations can be found in the applicative potential and in the perspective to investigate novel regimes as available laser intensitieswill be increasing. Experiments have demonstrated, over a wide range\ud of laser and target parameters, the generation of multi-MeV proton and ion beams with unique properties\ud suchas ultrashort duration, high brilliance, and low emittance. An overview is given of the state of the art of\ud ion acceleration by laser pulses aswell as an outlook on its future development and perspectives.The main\ud features observed in the experiments, the observed scaling with laser and plasma parameters, and the main\ud models used both to interpret experimental data and to suggest new research directions are described

The electromagnetic radiation pressure becomes dominant in the interaction of the ultra-intense electromagnetic wave with a solid material, thus the wave energy can be transformed efficiently into the energy of ions representing the material and the high density ultra-short relativistic ion beam is generated. This regime can be seen even with present-day technology, when an exawatt laser will be built. As an application, we suggest the laser-driven heavy ion collider.

International audienceThe past few years have seen remarkable progress in the development of laser-based particle accelerators. The ability to produce ultrabright beams of multi-megaelectronvolt protons routinely has many potential uses from engineering to medicine, but for this potential to be realized substantial improvements in the performances of these devices must be made. Here we show that in the laser-driven accelerator that has been demonstrated experimentally to produce the highest energy protons, scaling laws derived from fluid models and supported by numerical simulations can be used to accurately describe the acceleration of proton beams for a large range of laser and target parameters. This enables us to evaluate the laser parameters needed to produce high-energy and high-quality proton beams of interest for radiography of dense objects or proton therapy of deep-seated tumours

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