Modeling the time evolution of laser-induced plasmas for various pulse durations and fluences

In this paper, the expansion in ambient air of a plasma produced by laser ablation from an aluminum target is studied with the help of a one-dimensional fluid code that includes a consistent description of ablation and of the subsequent plasma expansion. Two limiting cases for the expansion geometry have been considered: Cartesian and hemispheric. The plasma temperature and electron density as a function of the space coordinate and time have been obtained for laser pulse durations of 100 fs, 200 ps, and 5 ns, and laser fluences up to a few tens of J/cm(2). Simulation results are in good agreement with experiments. The code shows that for times typically longer than 1 mus, the plasma space-averaged temperature and electron density are nearly independent of the laser parameters and of the chosen expansion geometry. For a given pulse duration the plasma temperature first increases with the fluence and then reaches a saturation value. It is shown that most of the observed plasma behavior can be explained by radiative cooling. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.