Experimental study of collective acceleration of ions from a localized gas cloud

Abstract

The collective acceleration of ions (H, D, He, N, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe) to peak energies of about 5 MeV/nucleon has been achieved using a 1.5-MeV, 35-kA, 30-ns electron beam pulse. Ion energies have been measured using time-of-flight, range-energy/track etching, and nuclear diagnostics.