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Phys. Rev. E 81, 036408 (2010) [7 pages]

Collimation of dense plasma jets created by low-energy laser pulses and studied with soft x-ray laser interferometry

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Michael A. Purvis1, Jonathan Grava1, Jorge Filevich1, Duncan P. Ryan2, Stephen J. Moon3, James Dunn3, Vyacheslav N. Shlyaptsev1, and Jorge J. Rocca1,2
1NSF ERC for Extreme Ultraviolet Science and Technology and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
2Department of Physics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
3Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA

Received 23 December 2009; published 15 March 2010

The physical mechanisms driving the collimation of dense plasma jets created by low-energy (∼0.6 J) laser pulse irradiation of triangular grooves were studied for different target materials using soft-x-ray interferometry and hydrodynamic code simulations. The degree of collimation of jets created by irradiating C, Al, Cu, and Mo targets at intensities of I=1×1012 W cm−2 with 120 ps laser pulses was observed to increase significantly with the atomic number. Radiation cooling is found to be the cause of the increased collimation, while the main effect of the increase in mass is to slow the jet evolution.

© 2010 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.81.036408
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevE.81.036408
PACS:
52.50.Jm, 52.70.-m, 52.65.-y, 07.60.Ly
 
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