High-intensity laser particle acceleration

Electron and ion acceleration with highly intense laser pulses is a rapidly developing field of relativistic laser-plasma physics. During the last, years the ultrashort (femtoseconds) high-density electron bunches could be produced with a nearly mono-energetic spectrum and GeV energies became accessible with table-top class lasers. While such electron bunches are produced in gases, at laser irradiated foils the relativistic electrons produce charge separation fields well above 1012 V/m which in turn accelerate a large number of ions (1010 - 1013) with a small transversal emittance (< 0.004mm . mrad) within less than one picosecond. The usually broad energy distribution of the ions could be narrowed by special target designs in two recent experiments. The production of relativistic solid density ion bunches will become possible in the near future. The application of laser accelerated ion beams could reach from compact fast-ion injectors for conventional particle accelerators over fast ignition for inertial confinement fusion to oncology and radiotherapy with ion beams. (orig.)