P110
Laserinduced nanoplasmas from rare gas and metal clusters
Christoph Ellert and Martin Schmidt
CEA Saclay, France
The irradiation of atomic clusters by intense short laser pulses leads to the formation of
hot, far from equilibrium nanometer sized plasmas, which emit highly charged, energetic
atomic ions (up to 30+ and several hundred keV), energetic electrons and hard X-rays in
the keV range. The kinetic energy distribution of the ionic fragments was measured by means
of a magnetic deflection time-of-flight spectrometer in order to identify their acceleration
mechanism. It was found that in rare gas clusters both Coulomb explosion as well as
hydrodynamic expansion of the nanoplasmas are involved. To investigate the role of the
initial properties of the cluster in the formation process of the plasma we studied as
well metallic clusters in intense laser fields. Consequently, the prevailing model
assumes a twostep process of an initial ionisation and a subsequent heating of the
preformed plasma.
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