Diagnostics of laser-produced plasmas based on the analysis of intensity ratios of He-like ions X-ray emission

In this paper, we detail the diagnostic technique used to infer the spatially resolved electron temperatures and densities in experiments dedicated to investigate the generation of magnetically collimated plasma jets. It is shown that the relative intensities of the resonance transitions in emitting He-like ions can be used to measure the temperature in such recombining plasmas. The intensities of these transitions are sensitive to the plasma density in the range of 1016–1020 cm−3 and to plasma temperature ranges from 10 to 100 eV for ions with a nuclear charge Zn ∼ 10. We show how detailed calculations of the emissivity of F VIII ions allow to determine the parameters of the plasma jets that were created using ELFIE ns laser facility (Ecole Polytechnique, France). The diagnostic and analysis technique detailed here can be applied in a broader context than the one of this study, i.e., to diagnose any recombining plasma containing He-like fluorine ions.