Diagnostic study of laser-produced tungsten plasma using optical emission spectroscopy and time-of-flight mass spectroscopy

Abstract

In this work, the plasma was produced by irradiating a tungsten target with an 8ns pulsed Nd:YAG (λ=1064nm) laser in a vacuum chamber under the pressure of 4×10−4Pa. The optical and particle emissions were systematically investigated using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and time-of-flight mass spectroscopy respectively. The results showed that not only there were neutral and single ionized atoms in the laser induced plasma, but also quite a number of multi-charged ions were observed. The ion charge state was even up to 6 at the laser power density of ~11GW/cm2. Time and space resolved optical spectroscopy was investigated by using a bundle of lined fibers. Meanwhile, the time-resolved mass spectrometric study of laser produced tungsten plasma was carried out. The variation in intensities of the different species with time showed that higher charged ions reached their peak intensities earlier. This demonstrated that the higher charged ions had higher velocities and the different charged ions were separated during the expansion process. The kinetic energy corresponding to the velocity of the ions was found to increase exponentially with ionic charge state which was related to the acceleration of the dynamic plasma sheath.