Material ablation and plasma state for single and collinear double pulses interacting with iron samples at ambient gas pressures below 1 bar

The influence of the ambient gas pressure on ablated material and the plasma state of laser-inducedplasmas using single and collinear double pulses is studied. A Q-switchedNd:YAG laser pulse is focused on iron samples in air at pressures ranging from 0.1 to 1013 mbar. At 1013 mbar double pulses ablate up to a factor of 4.6 more material than single pulses of the same energy. Whereas between 1013 mbar and 100 mbar a strong variation of the ablation ratio is found, the pressure dependence vanishes below 100 mbar. Electron densities in the plasma are always higher for single pulses and increase monotonously with higher ambient pressures. While the electron density for single and double pulses at 1013 mbar is close to the same value of about 10(17) cm(-3), the electron temperature is more than 1500 K higher for double pulses. The plasma state achieved with double pulses at atmospheric pressure is similar to that obtained with single pulses of the same energy at a pressure of 100 mbar. Thus the effect of double pulses can be interpreted as a laser-generated vacuum in terms of the formation of a transient localized low particle density region in the interaction region.