High-intensity laser plasma-based ion accelerators provide unsurpassed field gradients in the megavolt-per-micrometer range. They represent promising candidates for next-generation applications such as ion beam cancer therapy in compact facilities. The weak scaling of maximum ion energies with the square-root of the laser intensity, established for large sub-picosecond class laser systems, moti...

Multi-MeV ion production from the interaction of a short laser pulse with a high-density plasma, accompanied by an underdense preplasma, has been studied with a particle-in-cell simulation and good agreement is found with experiment. The mechanism primarily responsible for the acceleration of ions is identified. Comparison with experiments sheds light on the ion-energy dependence on laser inten...

In ion traps, entangling gate operations can be realized by a bichromatic pair of laser beams that collectively interact with the ions. In this paper, a new method of modelling the laser-ion interaction is introduced that turns out to be superior to standard techniques for the description of gate operations on optical qubits. The treatment allows for a comparison of the performance of gates bas...

The production of ion beams from the interaction of a circularly polarized laser pulse with a nanometric double-layer target is discussed in the regime where all electrons are expelled from the target by the laser radiation pressure. Quasi-monochromatic, well-collimated ion beams are observed in two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The ion beam properties are derived from a simple anal...

Intense laser produced plasmas generate hot electrons which in turn leads to ion acceleration. Ability to generate faster ions or hotter electrons using the same laser parameters is one of the main outstanding paradigms in the intense laser-plasma physics. Here, we present a simple, albeit, unconventional target that succeeds in generating 700 keV carbon ions where conventional targets for the ...

Laser cooling and ion trapping have progressed to such an extent that one can now speak of realizing a confined atom at absolute zero temperature. In this short publication, we analyze an experiment toward such realization using a single Ba(+) ion in a miniature rf trap. The Ba(+) ion is first laser-cooled to the limit where the ion spends most of its time in the zero-point energy state. Then a...

The laser-ion beam photodissociation for [C4H4]+' ions produced from a variety of precursors has been studied. Based on the data it is apparent that two structurally distinct forms of the [C4H4]+* ion are produced by fragmentation of larger systems. The relative population of the various structural forms is very dependent on the internal energy of the fragmenting ion, with 1-buten-3-yne [C4€L,]...

electron bombardment is applicable to any atomic species, it can reduce the lifetime of the trapped ions by contaminating the vacuum, and the accumulation of charge on insulators can result in additional micromotion or even destabilize the trap. Although photoionization can avoid the issues related to electron bombardment, there can be significant overhead associated with the additional lasers,...

The mean lifetime w of the 4p' 'F7/2 level of Ar II has been measured using a variant of the collinear laser-beam —fast-ion-beam spectroscopy technique. Our variant requires no mechanical motion or laser frequency tuning. The result is ~=8.414+0.025 ns in agreement with an earlier, comparably precise, measurement based on a crossed laser —ion-beam technique. The result lies above all theoretica...