Production and acceleration of protons by Titanium Hydride solid disks via excimer laser ablation

In this work we present the preliminary investigations about the production of proton beams by pulsed laser ablation of solid disks produced by compressed Titanium Hydride (TiH) powder. The laser we used was an excimer KrF, operating at low intensity and ns pulse duration. The ion emission was analyzed by the time-of-flight technique using a Faraday cup as ion collector. We performed initial studies on the produced plasma for different laser fluence values. In free expansion mode we obtained protons and titanium ions having kinetic energy of some hundred of eV; by applying a post-accelerating voltage we analyzed the beams up to 15 keV. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.