[en] Part of this work was the development of a cryogenic system to produce solid state targets out of nitrogen and rare gases but also hydrogen and deuterium. For target optimization a portable cryogenic test and development chamber has been set up, which can be used offline at different experimental places. Cryogenic targets with different geometries have been produced. Targets with a high aspect ratio having a thickness of only a few micrometers and transverse sizes of millimeters are of special interest for the envisioned investigations. Such targets permit the generation of laser plasmas with a high degree of homogeneity, thus enabling the measurement of the ion energy loss under well defined conditions. Nevertheless, high aspect ratio targets are technologically demanding. Thus, in view of energy loss experiments a simpler geometry has also been considered. Therefore, cryogenic nitrogen targets with cm sizes have been produced and irradiated by the nhelix high energy laser system. The free electron density of the generated plasma has been measured in the range up to 10²⁰ cm^-3. The measured electron temperature was about 200 eV. The experimental results have been compared to computer simulations and analyzed. It turned out that simulation and experiment are in good agreement, but the free electron density was too low and inhomogeneous for reliable energy loss experiments. Therefore, further deuterium targets with a high aspect ratio but varying geometries have been produced. These targets have been probed by the UNILAC ion beam and it has been shown that the ion beam can penetrate through them. The targets have also been simultaneously irradiated by the high energy laser systems nhelix and Phelix. The free electron density inside the deuterium plasma has been measured and compared with computer simulations. As in the case of nitrogen plasmas a good agreement has been observed. A new measurement technique has been developed to characterize the target independently of the UNILAC ion beam. An electron source together with a focussing and steering system has been set up to measure the thickness of deuterium targets. This permit a time resolved measurement of the thickness of high aspect ratio targets. The evolution of the thickness below 200 m has been determined with a relative error of 12% within the range of interest for energy loss experiments. Computer simulations have been performed and also compared to measurements with carbon foils. A good agreement has been observed. According to these measurements deuterium targets have a suitable thickness for a time interval of several minutes and therefore can be successfully used in energy loss experiments. iii (orig.)