The Effect of Confinement Angle on Self-Colliding Aluminium Laser Plasmas Using Spectrally Resolved Fast Imaging.

In this work we investigate the effect of the confinement angle on self-colliding aluminium laser produced plasmas. More specifically, we apply V-shaped channel targets of different angles (90°, 60° and 30°) and report both broadband and filtered time-resolved fast imaging measurements on the formation of such plasmas in ambient air. Based on the broadband measurements we suggest that the plasmas formed on the two inner walls of the V-shaped channel expand normally to the surface, interact with each other and possibly stagnate. The spectrally filtered fast imaging reveals the presence of a spatial distribution of different species within the plasmas and signatures of forced recombination.