The characteristics of a pulsed laser ion source have been studied. A pulse from a heating laser (Nd: YAG laser) desorbs the neutral atoms from the surface of a metal target and then a second pulse or pulses from excimer or dye lasers selectively ionize the desorbed neutrals using the Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy technique. Time-of-flight and electrostatic energy analyzer measurements have been used to study different characteristics of this ion source such as spatial, velocity, and energy distributions. These measurements reveal that although the energy spread of the basic source is relatively high, (FWHM 37 eV) the use of a pulsed acceleration system can reduce this spread by a factor of 5 (to about 7 eV), making the source suitable for collinear laser spectroscopy.