I can’t tell for sure from the article but I think they are accelerating protons with TNSA (target normal sheath acceleration). I worked in a lab in undergrad t

I can’t tell for sure from the article but I think they are accelerating protons with TNSA (target normal sheath acceleration). I worked in a lab in undergrad that was doing something similar, except with lithium instead of boron. The main challenges that I recall from a decade ago with TNSA are (WARNING: there almost certainly has been progress since a decade ago): -Conversion efficiency of laser energy into ion (proton) kinetic energy -TNSA accelerates mainly the contaminated layer on the back of targets, which may not be a big deal if you are interested in accelerating protons -TNSA protons are not beam like. They do not have a uniform kinetic energy, and they have a wide angular divergence. -Various laser related issues (prepulse, focal spot size/shape). I also anticipate that it will have the same engineering problem as ICF/NIF, in that it will need to continuously replenish targets.