a b s t r a c tDiamond based detectors have been used in order to analyze the ionizing radiation emitted from the laser-generated plasma. High energy proton/ion beams were generated at Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) Centre by the sub-nanosecond kJ-class laser at intensities above 10 16 W/cm 2 . The tested detectors consisted of a photoconductive device based on high quality chemical vapor deposition (CVD) single crystal diamond, produced at Rome "Tor Vergata" University. They have been operated in planar configuration, having inter-digitized electrodes.The proposed diamond detectors were able to measure UV, X-rays, electrons and ions. They have been employed in time-of-flight (TOF) configuration and their reliability was checked by comparison with standard ion collectors (mostly used at PALS). Both the forward and backward expanding plasma was characterized in the experiment. The results indicate that diamond detectors are very promising for the characterization of fast proton and ion beams produced by high power laser systems.
The plasma generated from thin gold films irradiated in high vacuum at high intensity (∼1015 W/cm2) laser shot is characterized in terms of ion generation through time-of-flight techniques and Thomson parabola spectrometry. Gold ions and protons, accelerated in forward direction by the electric field developed in non-equilibrium plasma, have been investigated. Measurements, performed at PALS laboratory, give information about the gold charge states distributions, the ion energy distributions and the proton acceleration driven as a function of film thickness, laser parameters, and angular emission. The ion diagnostics of produced plasma in forward direction permits to understand some mechanisms developed during its expansion kinetics. The role of the focal position of a laser beam with respect to the target surface, plasma properties, and the possibility to accelerate protons up to energies above 3 MeV has been presented and discussed.
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