The Advanced Strategies for Accelerating Ions with Lasers (ASAIL) project, led by Queen’s University Belfast, is developing high power laser-driven sources of protons, ions and gamma rays. It aims to provide compact and flexible sources with optimal properties for use in industrial and medical context. The specific objectives for the project are to develop the relevant technology for high-flux, high-repetition source delivery and characterisation. These will be achieved via a combination of innovative developments in target production and delivery, detector technology, beam property optimization and control.

Experiments have been conducted at several worldwide laser facilities including Taranis at Queen’s, Astra Gemini and Vulcan Petawatt at RAL in the UK, J-Karen at JAEA in Japan, Brookhaven in the USA and LULI in France. Several high profile publications have been produced, including work on diffraction-limited performance and focusing of high harmonics from relativistic plasmas.