LASER PRODUCED PLASMAS

Publisher Summary The chapter provides information on laser-produced plasmas, and presents a review on laser plasma ultraviolet (XUV) sources, and their characteristics and heir applications. Laser plasmas are pulsed, usually produced by the output of lasers having duration of several nanoseconds or less. They are point sources, having spatial extents of usually less than a millimeter, that are precisely located in a vacuum chamber, allowing easy access and precision alignment to optical instrumentation. Like discharge devices, their spectrum is rich in line emission, which can be easily varied by manipulation of the laser plasma irradiation conditions. Recent advances in several aspects of laser technology will provide new capabilities to laser-plasma-based XUV spectroscopy. Up to the present time applications of laser plasma XUV have been extremely useful, providing combinations of brightness, emission duration, and source size not easily attained by other sources. One of the most successful techniques is resonant laser driven ionization (RLDI). This technique and the use of dual laser plasmas have allowed high-resolution measurements of photoionization cross sections, giant resonances, and detailed analysis of sub-shell absorption spectra. Laser plasma sources are also used as transition calibration and transfer sources for such applications as detector calibration, and the characterization of XUV optical elements.