Proton beams emission from laser-generated plasmas

An alternative method employing large dimension ion accelerator systems to generate proton beams can be the production of ions by using a power pulsed laser, operating at high intensity, irradiating in vacuum hydrogenated targets and by extracting the ions of interest from the generated plasma. The choice of the adequate target, of the laser pulse intensity regime and of the ion current obtainable, is strongly dependent of the type of experimental apparatus, as will be discussed in the article. Proton beam emission from experiments conduced at low and high laser intensities are presented, in order to generate protons from about 100 eV, as that prepared at the Physics Department of Messina University, up to about 100 keV, as prepared at INFN-LNS of Catania, and up to about 1 MeV obtained at the international PALS Laboratory of Prague, Czech Republic