  A novel, induction type linear accelerator, the Neutralized Drift Compression
eXperiment (NDCX-II), is currently being commissioned at Berkeley Lab. This
accelerator is designed to deliver intense (up to 3x1011 ions/pulse), 0.6 to
~600 ns duration pulses of 0.13 to 1.2 MeV lithium ions at a rate of about 2
pulses per minute onto 1 to 10 mm scale target areas. When focused to
mm-diameter spots, the beam is predicted to volumetrically heat micrometer
thick foils to temperatures of ~30,000 K. At lower beam power densities, the
short excitation pulse with tunable intensity and time profile enables
pump-probe type studies of defect dynamics in a broad range of materials. We
briefly describe the accelerator concept and design, present results from beam
pulse shaping experiments and discuss examples of pump-probe type studies of
defect dynamics following irradiation of materials with intense, short ion beam
pulses from NDCX-II.
