Measurement and analysis of species distribution in laser-induced ablation plasma of an aluminum-magnesium alloy

We proposed a theoretical spatio-temporal imaging method, which was based on the thermal model of laser ablation and the two-dimensional axisymmetric multi-species hydrodynamics model. By using the intensity formula, the integral intensity of spectral lines could be calculated and the corresponding images of intensity distribution could be drawn. Through further image processing such as normalization, determination of minimum intensity, combination and color filtering, a relatively clear species distribution image in the plasma could be obtained. Using the above method, we simulated the plasma ablated from Al-Mg alloy by different laser energies under 1 atm argon, and obtained the theoretical spatio-temporal distributions of Mg I, Mg II, Al I, Al II and Ar I species, which are almost consistent with the experimental results by differential imaging. Compared with the experimental decay time constants, the consistency is higher at low laser energy, indicating that our theoretical model is more suitable for the plasma dominated by laser-supported combustion wave.

Automated summary

We proposed a theoretical spatio-temporal imaging method based on thermal and hydrodynamics models, which can obtain clear species distribution images in plasma through image processing. Simulations of plasma with different laser energies showed consistent results with experimental data, especially at low laser energy.