46th International Workshop on High Energy Density Physics with Intense Ion and Laser Beams

The Laser Ion Generation, Handling and Transport (LIGHT) beamline at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH enables advanced phase-space manipulations of laser-generated ion beams. In recent years, the LIGHT collaboration has successfully generated and focused intense proton and ion bunches with sub-nanosecond durations, opening pathways to applications such as probing ion-stopping power in plasmas. This process of energy deposition in dense plasmas, essential for inertial confinement fusion, is particularly challenging in the velocity-matching regime (vi ≈ ve,th), where theoretical predictions diverge and experimental data remain scarce.
To provide high-resolution experimental insight, LIGHT has been developed to deliver ion bunches synchronized to the nanosecond-scale dynamics of laser-generated plasmas. Earlier studies achieved temporal compression of carbon ions (1.2 ns FWHM at 0.6 MeV/u) and protons (0.8 ns FWHM at 0.6 MeV), which were applied to cold target energy-loss measurements.
In 2025, the first experiment combining the LIGHT beamline with a laser-ignited plasma target was performed using C⁴⁺ ions at 0.6 MeV/u. A pulse compression down to 0.74 ns (FWHM) was achieved. These results will represent an important step toward systematic studies of ion-stopping power in plasmas at temporal resolutions previously inaccessible.