Mass spectra of multiply charged ions in a laser produced plasma

The mass spectrometric method was used in an experimental investigation of the fast ions in a plasma generated using moderate laser radiation power densities (q = 10¹⁰–10¹² W/cm²). It was found that, for power densities of q ≳ 0.5 TW/cm² and p-polarized laser radiation incident at angles of Θ = 18 ± 5°, two groups of ions appeared and these differed in both energy and charge multiplicity. For q = 1 TW/cm² the ion velocity was ~ 10⁸ cm/s.