The influence of target irradiation conditions on the parameters of laser-produced plasma jets

Recent experimental results demonstrate that the forming of plasma jets is a fundamental process accompanying the laser-produced plasma expansion, if a massive planar target with relatively high atomic number is irradiated by a defocused laser beam. In this paper some new results on the influence of target irradiation conditions on plasma jet parameters are presented. The experiment was carried out at the Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) iodine laser [K. Jungwirth, A. Cejnarova, L. Juha, B. Kralikova, J. Krasa, E. Krousky, P. Krupickova, L. Laska, K. Masek, A. Prag, O. Renner, K. Rohlena, B. Rus, J. Skala, P. Straka, and J. Ullschmied, Phys. Plasmas 8, 2495 (2001)]. with the third harmonic beam of the pulse duration of $250ps$⁠. The beam energies varied in the range of $13–160J$⁠. The planar massive targets used in the experiment were made of copper. For measurements of the electron density evolution a three frame interferometric system was employed. The jets were produced in the whole range of the laser energy used. Calculations of the efficiency of the plasma jet production show that it decreases with increasing the laser energy.