Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction

Ion acceleration driven by superintense laser pulses is attracting an impressive and steadily increasing effort. Motivations can be found in the applicative potential and in the perspective to investigate novel regimesasavailable laser intensitieswill be increasing.Experimentshavedemonstrated, over awide range of laser and target parameters, the generation of multi-MeV proton and ion beams with unique properties suchasultrashort duration, highbrilliance, and lowemittance.Anoverview isgivenof the state of theart of ion acceleration by laser pulses aswell as anoutlookon its futuredevelopment andperspectives.Themain features observed in the experiments, the observed scalingwith laser and plasma parameters, and themain models used both to interpret experimental data and to suggest new research directions are described.