Characterization of plasma jets from thin foils irradiated at high laser intensity

Kakolee, K. and Doria, D. and Kar, S. and Ramakrishna, B. and Sarri, G. and Quinn, K. and Osterholz, J. and Cerchez, M. and Willi, O. and Yuan, X. and McKenna, P. and Borghesi, M.; McKenna, C., ed. (2010) Characterization of plasma jets from thin foils irradiated at high laser intensity. In: 37th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics 2010. European Physical Society (EPS), IRL. ISBN 2914771622

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Abstract

Evolution of plasma jets from micron to sub-micron thickness foils following the interaction of ultra intense (up to 3 ×1020 W/cm2) laser pulses is investigated. The dynamics of the collimated plasma jet from the target rear surface was followed by time resolved optical interferometry. We found a correlation between laser intensity and target areal density in the formation of supersonic dense plasma jets. With the maximum achievable intensity on target, jets with Mach number up to 10 have been observed from 1 um thick Cu foils expanding longitudinally with a velocity of 2×106 m/s.