KrF laser produced plasmas

Abstract

KrF and other short wavelength lasers are ideal candidates for producing hot dense plasmas since the laser energy can be absorbed with high efficiency by classical mechanisms, thereby virtually eliminating anomalous absorption and the production of non-thermal electrons. A high power KrF laser system employing optical beam multiplexing and stimulated Brillouin scattering to produce pulses as short as 1 ns and focused intensities on target of 10¹¹−10¹⁴ W/cm² has been developed for producing such plasmas and studying laser/plasma interaction phenomena. A variety of studies on absorption, transport, ablation, X-ray conversion and stimulated scattering instabilities have been pursued with this ¼ μm laser on single atomic number and multi-layer targets. This paper briefly describes some of the features of the KrF laser system and highlights some of the characteristics of the hot dense plasmas produced.