Effect of repetitive irradiation on ion saturation current of laser ablation plasma using 1 kHz repetitive laser

Abstract

We demonstrated 100 shots of burst laser irradiation with an Al target using a 1 kHz repetitive pulse laser. By using the laser, we generated ablation plasmas with a repetition rate of 1 kHz. The time-evolution of ion saturation current density in the generated ablation plasma was measured using the orifice probe. The result shows that the waveforms on 100 spikes were observed. The ion saturation current density decreased rapidly from the first to the third shot and reached a minimum value at the fourth shot. After the fourth shot, it reached 1 μA/mm2 at the 53rd shot and settled at 0.5 μA/mm2. We extracted the time-evolution of ion saturation current densities of the first, 10th, 50th and 100th shots. The drift velocities were estimated by Time of Flight from the time-evolution of current. The result shows that the drift velocity of the ablation plasma increases with the increase in the number of shots.