The acceleration of high-energy ion beams following the interaction of short (t < 1 ps) and intense (Iλ2 > 1018 W cm-2 μm2) laser pulses with solid targets is a field of research currently attracting high interest in the scientific community, due to some of the unique properties of these ion sources, promising routes toward the optimization of their energy content, and a number of possible, innovative applications in the scientific, technological and medical areas. Work on the characterization and development of these sources has progressed enormously over the past few years, thanks to the contribution of many groups worldwide. This paper will report some recent results, obtained in experiments carried out at the RAL and LULI laboratories, in which we investigated the ion acceleration mechanism, developed a technique to control the ion beam divergence and energy spectrum, and applied a proton radiography technique to investigate electric and magnetic field production following laser-matter interaction. © EDP Sciences and Springer 2009.