High energy heavy ions were generated in laser produced plasma at
moderate laser energy, with a large focal spot size of 0.5 mm diameter.
The laser beam was provided by the 10 GW GSI-NHELIX laser systems, and the
ions were observed spectroscopically in status nascendi with high spatial
and spectral resolution. Due to the focal geometry, plasma jet was formed,
containing high energy heavy ions. The velocity distribution was measured
via an observation of Doppler shifted characteristic transition lines. The
observed energy of up to 3 MeV of F-ions deviates by an order of magnitude
from the well-known Gitomer (Gitomer et al.,
1986) scaling, and agrees with the higher energies of relativistic
self focusing.