Density and temperature maps of an aluminium plasma produced by laser ablation

A wide field spectrograph was used to calculate maps of the electron density and temperature of an aluminium plasma produced by laser ablation. Data were acquired from a single laser pulse. Line widths of singly and doubly ionized aluminium were used to calculate the density from the Stark effect. Temperature was determined using relative line intensities from successive ionization stages. This single pulse, two-dimensional diagnostic of the plasma may contribute to a better understanding of thin film synthesis by pulsed laser deposition.