Spatially and temporally resolved measurements of a dense copper plasma heated by intense relativistic electrons

A 100-μm-thick Cu foil is isochorically heated by a ∼100-ns-long electron bunch with an energy of 19.8 MeV and current of 1.7 kA to T e > 1 eV. After 100 ns of heating and 20 ns of expansion, the plasma exhibits a stable, quiescent temperature and density distribution for >200 ns. Several intense Cu-I emission lines are observed after ∼20 J of electron beam energy is deposited. These lines have well known Stark widths providing a direct measurement of n e . The Los Alamos ATOMIC code [Magee et al., AIP Conf. Proc. 2004, 168–179 and Hakel et al., J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 99, 265 (2006)] was run in local-thermodynamic-equilibrium mode to estimate T e and n e . Spatially and temporally resolved measurements are presented in both the vertical and horizontal directions adjacent to the foil indicating temperatures >1 eV and densities ranging from 1–3 × 1017 cm−3 after expansion and cooling.