Particle Acceleration with High-Intensity Lasers

Summary form only given. State of the art ultrashort-pulse, high-intensity laser systems generate light fields with intensities exceeding 10²⁰ W/cm² or electric field strength of up to 10¹¹ V/cm. The force of the magnetic part of the light wave on an electron exceeds the force of the electric field, which fundamentally alters the interaction of these light fields with matter. Electrons and ions can be accelerated to energies of tens of MeV within the laser focal region. The presentation will describe the basic mechanisms and the recent achievements of this novel field of electron and ion acceleration and describe the specific properties of laser produced fast particle beams. Particularly I will focus on the so called target normal sheath acceleration mechanism which is responsible for the generation of ion beams with high intensity lasers and on the status and prospects of a laser driven undulator radiation source.