[en] The experimental effort performed to date at TRW has concentrated on the development of reliable diagnostics and the negative hydrogen and deuterium ion characterization. In these experiments, it was observed that negative hydrogen and deuterium ions are very abundant in a plasma produced from the target irradiated by a Q switched ruby laser. The extraction of negative ions together with electrons from the plasma plume was achieved. It is not exactly known at this point what the ratio of negative ions to electrons in the extracting beam is. The diagnostics of the beam will be improved in the follow-on contract