1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
2. University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
3. Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitaet Muenchen,
4. Max-Planck-Institüt für Quantenoptik, Garching 85748, Germany
5. University of Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany

Correspondence to: B. M. Hegelich¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to B.M.H. (Email: hegelich@lanl.gov).

Acceleration of particles by intense laser–plasma interactions represents a rapidly evolving field of interest, as highlighted by the recent demonstration^{1, 2, 3, 4} of laser-driven relativistic beams of monoenergetic electrons. Ultrahigh-intensity lasers can produce accelerating fields of 10 TV m^-1 (1 TV = 10¹² V), surpassing those in conventional accelerators by six orders of magnitude. Laser-driven ions with energies of several MeV per nucleon have also been produced^{5, 6, 7, 8, 9}. Such ion beams exhibit unprecedented characteristics—short pulse lengths, high currents and low transverse emittance¹⁰—but their exponential energy spectra have almost 100% energy spread. This large energy spread, which is a consequence of the experimental conditions used to date, remains the biggest impediment to the wider use of this technology. Here we report the production of quasi-monoenergetic laser-driven C⁵⁺ ions with a vastly reduced energy spread of 17%. The ions have a mean energy of 3 MeV per nucleon (full-width at half-maximum 0.5 MeV per nucleon) and a longitudinal emittance of less than 2 10^-6 eV s for pulse durations shorter than 1 ps. Such laser-driven, high-current, quasi-monoenergetic ion sources may enable significant advances in the development of compact MeV ion accelerators¹¹, new diagnostics^{12, 13}, medical physics¹⁴, inertial confinement fusion and fast ignition^{15, 16, 17}.

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