The harmonics effect on ion-bulk (IBk) waves has been researched by Vlasov simulation. The condition of excitation of a large-amplitude IBk waves is given to explain the phenomenon of strong short-wavelength electrostatic activity in solar wind. When k is much lower than k lor /2 (k lor is the wave number at loss-of-resonance point), the IBk waves will not be excited to a large amplitude, because a large part of energy will be spread to harmonics. The nature of nonlinear IBk waves in the condition of k < k lor /2 is undamped Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal-like waves with harmonics superposition. Only when the wave number k of IBk waves satisfies k lor /2 < ∼ k ≤ k lor , can a large-amplitude and mono-frequency IBk wave be excited. These results give a guidance for a novel scattering mechanism related to IBk waves in the field of laser plasma interaction. The problem of understanding the role of kinetic effects and also fluid effects on the low frequency dynamics of collisionless plasmas, like solar wind, is nowadays of key significance in space physics. In the 1970s, several observations [1] have shown that the most intense ion-acoustic waves (IAWs) usually occur in the low-velocity regions, i.e., in the large-wave-number regions. This Letter will give the corresponding analyses and the evidence consistent to these observations. However, in their analyses [1], only the short-wavelength IAWs were considered as the main electrostatic activity in solar wind. Recently, Valentini et al. found that a novel branch of electrostatic kinetic waves was generated due to particles trapping in the development of the turbulent spectra [2]. The novel branch with a lower frequency than the IAWs and with a phase velocity v φ close to the ion thermal velocity v ti is named ion-bulk (IBk) waves by Valentini [3]. Therefore, the nature of lower frequency waves with v φ ≃ v ti is not understood due to a strong Landau damping, which is similar to the electron-acoustic waves (EAWs) [4]. By adding a external driving electric field (driver), after several bounce time of particles, the Landau damping of IBk waves will be decreased and be nearly zero [5][6][7] due to particles trapping. However, the energy was stored in the nonlinear IBk waves only when the wave number k was larger than a special value [2], which has not been explained and calls for a clear interpretation. This Letter will give a clear and detailed interpretation of these phenomena from the view of harmonics effects.On the other hand, the research of IBk waves will give a guidance to a new scattering mechanism in the field of laser plasmas interaction (LPI) [8,9] related to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) [10,11]. As we know, laser scattering mainly includes stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) [12] from IAWs, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) [13] from Langmuir waves (LWs). In addition, Montgomery et al. reported observation of a novel stimulated electron-acoustic-wave scattering (SEAS) [14] related to electron-acoustic waves (EAWs) [15]. However, Montgomery et al. [14] thoug...