Optimization for Ion Detection and Recognition From Laser-Generated Plasma Using SiC Detectors Connected in Time-of-Flight Acquisition

Abstract

A silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky diode detector is employed to monitor the ion streams emitted from laser-generated plasmas and to obtain information on their kinetic energy using time-of-flight (TOF) measurements. The laser operates with nanosecond (ns) pulses, in the IR region at 1064-nm wavelength, uses single pulses with 200-mJ energy, and an intensity of about 10 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{10}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> W/cm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{2}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> . Plasmas are produced in a high vacuum by irradiation different targets as polymers, ceramics, and metals. The non equilibrium plasma, back emitted orthogonally to the target surface, accelerates ions at about 110 eV per charge state and has a temperature within 70 and 100 eV growing with the atomic number of the laser irradiated target. In this article, an optimization of ion detection is checked for SiC detectors through the TOF spectra, permitting the ion recognition and angular emission. A comparison with classical ion collectors (ICs) is also presented and discussed.