The energy distributions of ions ablated from silver in vacuum have been measuredin situfor pulsed laser irradiation at 355 nm. We have determined the energy spectra for directions ranging from 5° to 75° with respect to the normal in the intensity range from 100 to 400MW/cm2.At the highest intensity and for angles close to the normal, the highest ion energy measured exceeds 500 eV. However, the energy distributions are shifted strongly towards low energies with increasing angle. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.