1. D. Scarpa 1, P. Nicolosi 2,3, A. Franci 2, A. Tomaselli 6, M. Manzolaro 1, S. Corradetti 1,4, J. Vasquez 1,5, M. Rossignoli 1, M. Calderolla 1, A. Monetti 1, M. Lollo 1, A. Andrighetto 1, G. Prete 1. 1.INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Legnaro (Padova), Italy. 2Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, 2.Università degli Studi di Padova. 3 IFN-CNR UOS Padova 4Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche dell’Università di Padova, Padova, Italy. 5 Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'informazione dell’Università di Padova, Padova, Italy. 6 Università degli Studi di Pavia, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale e dell'Informazione,, Via Ferrata 1, Pavia, Italy. Laser Ablation Characterization in LNL Laser Ablation An high power laser pulse focalized onto a surface (target) is capable to produce a rapid local increase of the temperature. This process implies an evaporation or direct sublimation of part of the target material. If laser power density in space and time is enough is possible to have formation of high density plasma, and production of high charge state ions, expelled from the target surface. Preliminary studies of these processes are starting in new SPES Laser Laboratory in Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro. The aim of this work is to start investigation and building first know-how on Laser Ion Sources. Ablation laser is a QUANTEL YG 980 Nd:YAG laser. It is capable of 2 J, 20 nsec pulses at maximum repetition rate of 10 Hz. Ablation Chamber Setup ND:YAG Laser Ablation Vacuum Chamber was entirely designed in LNL, it can reach vacuum down to 10 -6 mbar by diffusion oil pump. It guests ablation target, ion collector and several electrical connections. Pulse duration Target signal Collector signal Spot size Several power regime used during the experiments are characterized by different pulse durations. Ablated area data will provide a preliminary estimation of vaporized material to compare with ion current data. Results on current on plates show several peaks due to several ion state of charge. Some peaks are due to impact of neutral material on collector which extract electrons. Different plates polarization potential show several peak appearing and disappearing due to their state of charge. OTHER ACTIVITIES: Current measurements at the polarized collector. Results of current measurements show several peaks due to several ion state of charge. Some peaks are due to impact of neutral material on collector which extract electrons. Ablated area measurements will provide a preliminary quantity of vaporized material to compare with ion current data. Further measurements are planned using microscopes. Current measurements at the polarized target. Varying polarization voltage show several peak appearing and disappearing due to their state of charge. First tests: As first test we decided to duplicate a documented experimental setup to certify our equipment. Data show good qualitative agreement between the reference work and our preliminary measurements. This setup was chosen due to its simplicity, involving only a target and a collector plate. Successive improvements was implemented adding plates polarization by high voltage generator. ↑ΔV↑ΔV ↑ΔV↑ΔV Future developements: The vacuum chamber will be updated to guest a Time of Flight mass spectrometer. Thank to this improvement it will be possible to fully characterize the state of charge of the ions coming out from the plasma plume. Other experiments will be executed with other target material; the final goal is to have a complete characterization of the ablation process on refractory materials like Tungsten and Tantalum to investigate the design of a Laser Ion Source for stable atomic species. LNL new laser laboratory Since March 2013 a new laser laboratory is operative in LNL. In this laboratory is nowadays present a Nd:YAG Quantel Laser used for ablation studies and will be housed and tested the new all solid state tunable laser system for the SPES project. Aluminum reasonant laser ionization experiment setup The laser used for ionization is a broadband excimer laser LPX200 by Lambda Phisyk, which can charged with XeCl gas and emits laser radiation centered around 308 nm. Laser radiation is delivered by a focusing telescope 6 meter far away, and enters in the 3 mm diameter hot cavity, producing ionization. Due to the off-line front end setup in order to allows laser radiation to reach the hot cavity, is mandatory to displace the FC and redirect the beam by quadrupoles and electrostatic deflector, to collect anyway a signal. The vertical displacement does not affect the mass separation which is in the horizontal plane. FC Wien Filter Quadrupoles DeflectorsIS LASER IONS SPES facility will provide accelerated ions of exotic species for applied physics experiments. To provide such species a Uranium Carbide target will be impinged by protons and fission products will be ionized to be accelerated towards the experiment. Among the three suitable ionization methods: surface, plasma and laser; Laser Resonant Ionization, is the one that involves the major number of equipment's, but it is the one that assure better results in terms of beam purity and beam properties. During this process, just atoms belonging to the specie of interest are stepwise-excited leading to finally to continuum, obtaining an extremely pure ionization process. Usually these kind of laser are tunable, in order to match atoms absorption levels, they are pulsed to provide high energy peak and they run in high repetition rate to better match a continuous yields beam provided by target. Nowadays in the SPES off-line laboratory a first resonant laser ionization test for Aluminum is done with an Excimer laser and a two step – one color ionization path.