Non-linear plume dynamics of a laser ablated plume in a background gas

Jørgen Schou, Birgitte Thestrup, and Bo Toftmann

Department of Optics and Fluid Dynamics, Risø National Laboratory, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark

Tue N. Hansen, Brendan Doggett, and James Lunney

Department of Physics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Abstract: Film production by pulsed laser deposition has become a standard technique in laboratories. A target of silver was irradiated with ns-pulses of laser light with a fluence of 2-3 J/cm2 and at a wavelength of 355 nm. We have for the first time studied the expansion of a laser-produced silver plume into a low-pressure background gas of oxygen and argon for other directions than those along the normal. The flow of the plume was studied with Langmuir ion probes. The plume breaks up into two components, a non-scattered component and a slower blast wave, in all directions.