Laser irradiations of advanced targets promoting absorption resonance for ion acceleration in TNSA regime

Advanced targets based on Au nanoparticles embedded in polymers films show high absorption coeffi- cient in the UV–visible and infrared region. They can be employed to enhance the proton and ion accel- eration from the laser-generated plasma in TNSA regime. In conditions of ‘‘p’’ polarized laser irradiations at 1015 W/cm2 intensity, in these films can be induced resonant absorption due to plasma wave excita- tion. Plasma on-line diagnostics is based on SiC detectors, Thomson spectrometry and X-ray streak cam- era imaging. Measurements of kinetic energy of accelerated ions indicate a significant increment using polymer targets containing gold nanoparticles and ‘‘p’’ polarized laser light with respect to pure polymers and unpolarized light irradiation.