Angular distributions of currents and velocities (energies) of ions produced at various target irradiation angles and laser intensities ranged from 1010 W/cm2 to 1017 W/cm2 were analyzed. It was confirmed that for low laser intensities the ion current distributions are always peaked along the target normal. However, at laser intensities comparable to or higher than 1014 W/cm2, the preferred direction of ion emission strongly depends on the irradiation geometry (laser focus setting, the irradiation angle), and can be off the target normal. This is very likely caused by the non-linear interaction of the laser beam with produced plasma, in particular, by the action of ponderomotive forces and the laser beam self-focusing.

In this paper, we present the results of studies on ion emission characteristics of a laser plasma produced from a copper nano-particle layer of 1–3 µm thickness coated over polished surface of a solid copper target. Laser intensity of 1013–1014 W/cm2 was produced on the targets by a 2 J Nd:glass laser having a variable pulse duration of 300–800 ps. Nano-particle size was in the range of 15–25 nm. Ion emission from the nano-particle plasma was compared with plasma generated from a polished copper target. Ion emission from the nano-structured target was observed to depend on the polarization of the incident laser beam. This effect was stronger for a shorter laser pulse. X-ray emission was measured in the soft and hard X-ray region (0.7 to 8 keV) using various X-ray filters. A nano-particle coated target is found to yield a larger flux as well as velocity of ions as compared to polished target when the laser polarization is parallel to the plane containing target normal and detector axis. However, no X-ray enhancement has been observed in the wavelength range 1.5 to 20 Å.

Measurements of the ion emission from targets irradiated with neodymium glass and iodine lasers were analyzed and a very significant anomaly observed. The fastest ions with high charge number Z, which usually are of megaelectron volt energy following the relativistic self-focusing and nonlinear-force acceleration theory, were reduced to less than 50 times lower energies when 1.2 ps laser pulses of about 1 J were incident. We clarify this discrepancy by the model of skin depth plasma front interaction in contrast to the relativistic self-focusing with filament generation. This was indicated also from the unique fact that the ion number was independent of the laser intensity. The skin layer theory prescribes prepulse control and lower (near relativistic threshold) laser intensities for nonlinear-force-driven plasma blocks for high-gain ignition similar to light ion beam fusion.