Laser Ablation Characterization in Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro

Using high power laser focalized into a target material generates plasma and it has the consequence to immediately extract and ionize atoms from the target itself. This process is the starting point to have a simple and compact ion source, usually named Laser Ion Source (LIS). This kind of sources are arising in the scenario of ion sources especially in refractory elements ions production, where the atomization of the material to ionize is the main issue because of its high evaporating temperature. These considerations and the fact that ion sources are becoming nowadays more and more important to several fields of science and technology, open an interesting line of research that our group at Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro wants to investigate. Experiment involves characterization of produced ions by measuring charge state and amount of ions created. Measurements will be performed with several power densities and varying ions collector distance and potential respect to the target. These simple experiments are the necessary preliminary steps to characterize the system and to start a solid future development onto possible different and effective ways to perform ions sources using laser.