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Updated: May 17, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Time-resolved soft x-ray spectra from laser-produced Cu plasma
1Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA. cone2@llnl.gov
Abstract:
The volumetric heating of a thin copper target has been studied with time resolved x-ray spectroscopy. The copper target was heated by a plasma produced using the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Compact Multipulse Terawatt (COMET) laser. A variable spaced grating spectrometer coupled to an x-ray streak camera measured soft x-ray emission (800-1550 eV) from the back of the copper target to characterize the bulk heating of the target. Radiation hydrodynamic simulations were modeled in two-dimensions using the HYDRA code. The target conditions calculated by HYDRA were post-processed with the atomic kinetics code CRETIN to generate synthetic emission spectra. A comparison between the experimental and simulated spectra indicates the presence of specific ionization states of copper and the corresponding electron temperatures and ion densities throughout the laser-heated copper target.
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