Laser-intensity scaling experiments in long-scalelength, laser-produced plasmas

Autor: T. W. Johnston, Kent Estabrook, William L. Kruer, C. B. Darrow, R. P. Drake, P. E. Young, E. A. Williams, H. A. Baldis, Barbara F. Lasinski
Rok vydání: 1988
Předmět:
Zdroj: Physics of Fluids. 31:1795
ISSN: 0031-9171
DOI: 10.1063/1.866669
Popis: An experimental technique is demonstrated that allows variation of the average laser intensity by more than two orders of magnitude while producing much smaller changes in the other parameters that determine the laser–plasma interactions. By irradiating exploding‐foil targets with 0.35 μm laser light in flat‐topped pulses of variable duration, the high‐power Nova laser [Rev. Sci. Instrum. 57, 2101 (1986)] produced plasmas with electron temperatures of order 1 keV and with scale lengths of the (radial and axial) electron‐density gradients of order 1000 laser wavelengths. By using a constant target thickness and systematically decreasing the pulse length and spot size as laser intensity increased, the changes in the temperature and in the scale lengths were minimized. The time‐resolved spectrum of the Raman‐scattered light was used to measure both the electron temperature and the maximum density of the expanding plasmas. In this paper, these measurements are compared to both 1‐D models and 2‐D simulations. ...
Databáze: OpenAIRE