Plasma plumes produced by laser ablation of Al with single and double pulse schemes

We generated and characterized plasma with single and double picosecond laser pulses in order to study the plume dynamics and to control the plasma properties. The double-pulse scheme was found to be superior for the generation of a homogeneous plasma. The lateral expansion was prominent for irradiation schemes wherein energy of the first pulse is lower/equal to that of the second pulse. While the velocities of the fast and slow species were found to be nearly equal, the emission counts corresponding to slow species are larger for single pulse compared to the double pulse.