Dynamics of ions produced by laser ablation of several metals at 193 nm

This work reports the study of ion dynamics produced by ablation of Al, Cu, Ag, Au, and Bi targets using nanosecond laser pulses at 193 nm as a function of the laser fluence from threshold up to 15 Jcm-2. An electrical (Langmuir) probe has been used for determining the ion yield as well as kinetic energy distributions. The results clearly evidence that ablation of Al shows unique features when compared to other metals. The ion yield both at threshold (except for Al, which shows a two-threshold-like behavior) and for a fixed fluence above threshold scale approximately with melting temperature of the metal. Comparison of the magnitude of the yield reported in literature using other wavelengths allows us to conclude its dependence with wavelength is not significant. The evolution of the ion yield with fluence becomes slower for fluences above 4-5 Jcm-2 with no indication of saturation suggesting that ionization processes in the plasma are still active up to 15 Jcm -2 and production of multiple-charged ions are promoted. This dependence is mirrored in the proportion of ions with kinetic energies higher than 200 eV. This proportion is not significant around threshold fluence for all metals except for Al, which is already 20. The unique features of Al are discussed in terms of the energy of laser photons (6.4 eV) that is enough to induce direct photoionization from the ground state only in the case of this metal. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.This work has partially been supported by MAT2009- 14282-C02-01 (Spain). G. B. acknowledges a grant from CSIC–JAE program.Peer Reviewe