[en] A Nd:Yag laser is employed to irradiate thick Fe targets placed in vacuum. The obtained non-equilibrium Fe-plasma is investigated with various analytical techniques. An electrostatic ion energy analyzer (IEA) and a ring ion collector (ICR) are employed, in time-of-flight configuration, to monitor in situ the ejected ions from the plasma along the normal direction to the target surface and to determine the plasma core temperature and the ion energy distributions. The visible plasma emission, detected with an optical spectrometer, permitted to evaluate the electronic temperature and density and the fluence threshold of the visible light emission. The spectroscopy measurements of ions and photons and the fast CCD plasma images are employed to evaluate the temperature gradients in the laser-generated plasma plume