Investigation of laser produced Fe plasma plume dynamics using time resolved imaging and snow plow model

A theoretical and experimental study on the dynamics of pulsed laser generated Fe plasma is presented. The time resolved imaging of the plasma plume was done at two different Ar gas pressures of 2 and 20 mbar. Plasma ablation from the target was done using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm with a fluence of ~25 J/cm2. The snow plow model is fitted to the experimental data of the plume front position, obtained by gated time resolved images, to estimate the ablation parameters. The simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental values.