Characteristics of plasma shock waves in pulsed laser deposition process

Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, State key laboratory of laser technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

Corresponding author: lily.lzh@263.net

Received: 18 October 2002
Revised: 23 April 2004
Accepted: 29 April 2004
Published online: 30 August 2004

Abstract

We modify the Sedov theory to describe plasma shock waves generated in a pulsed laser ablating process. Under reasonable asymptotic behavior and boundary conditions, the propagating rules in global free space (including near areas and mid-far areas) of pulsed-laser-induced shock waves are established for the first time. In particular, the temporal behavior of energy causing a difference in the propagation characteristics between the practical plasma shock wave and the ideal shock wave in a point explosion model is detailedly discussed. The theoretical results calculated with our model are in good agreement with the corresponding experimental data. In addition, some important free parameters which could not directly be obtained from other previous works are determined naturally on the basis of our model.