• Pixe
• Laser

The study conducted in this thesis work aimed to understand and assess some of the main aspects involved in the innovative laser-driven Particle Induced X-rays Emission (PIXE). PIXE is an elemental analysis technique, where a beam of heavy particles, usually protons, is directed towards the target of interest, exciting its atoms which in turn emit a radiation in form of characteristic photons (x-rays or gamma-rays). Collecting and analyzing the spectrum of the photons coming out from the target it is possible to retrieve information about its chemical composition. This is possible due to the fact that, as it is known from quantum mechanics, the energy coming from the atom de-excitation can only have a well-defined value, so the characteristic photons emitted from the target are specific for each element and once measured can give relevant information on the composition of the target itself. One recent improvement of this technique is the Laser-Driven PIXE where, instead of particle accelerators, a laser is used to produce the protons. In this thesis work, computer simulations have been performed with the Monte Carlo code Geant4 in order to assess different quantities as the dose accumulated by the target during the irradiation, the number of photons produced and the depth reached by the protons inside the target.