Laser-Produced Plasma Research

Laser produced plasmas (LPP), formed when a high power pulsed laser is focused onto a dense medium, have been the subject of considerable attention since their discovery in 1960’s. Studies have been driven not only by a desire to obtain a full understanding of their fundamental physics underlying their formation and evolution across the wide parameter spaces in which they can exist but also to develop and exploit applications.  Some of the applications of LPP include, Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD), nanoparticle production, EUV light sources and ion accelerators. In addition, laser plasmas are playing an important role in the search for solutions to problems stretching from energy generation (for eg. ICF) to environmental monitoring (LIBS).

Currently our research is focused on following areas:

• Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy
• Laser-ablation ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS)
• LPP sources for EUV lithography (13.5 nm)
• LPP sources for Water-window microscopy (2.4 - 4 nm)
• Colliding plasmas
• Plasma Diagnostics
• Laser-plasma modeling using HEIGHTS

Recent LPP Publications from CMUXE:

• Physics of Plasmas 20 073114 (2013)
• Physics of Plasmas 20 013105 (2013)
• Physics of Plasmas 20 053105 (2013)
• Physics of Plasmas 19 083504 (2012)
• Journal of Applied Physics 113 143305 (2013)
• Plasma Sources Science & Technology 21 055003 (2012)

LPP Facilities at CMUXE:

Laser Sources:

1. TEA CO2­ laser (55 ns, 1 J)
2. Nd:YAG laser (8 ns FWHM, 0.6 J, SHG & THG)
3. Nd:YAG laser (6 ns FWHM, 0.8 J, SHG & FHG)
4. Pulsed Alexandrite laser (730-790 nm, 10-50 ns)Alignment lasers (He-Ne & green diodes)

Plasma and laser diagnostics:

1. Laser beam diagnostics (beam profilers, photodiodes, energy meters)
2. EUV Transmission grating spectrograph (5-20 nm)
3. WW Spectrograph (2-4 nm)
4. Princeton Instruments f = 50 cm visible spectrograph
5. Princeton Instruments PIXIS-XO X-ray camera
6. Princeton Instruments PIMAX ICCD camera
7. Andor Shamrock 750 spectrograph
8. Andor iStar ICCD camera
9. High resolution EUV pinhole camera (home-built)
10. Absolutely calibrated EUV energy meter (Scientec)
11. EUV Filtered photodiodes (IRD)
12. Interferometry
13. Shadowgraphy
14. Faraday cups
15. Comstock Electrostatic Energy Analyzer
16. Inficon Quartz Crystal Microbalance
17. Photomultiplier tube
18. Digital Delay Generators
19. 1 GHz Agilent Oscilloscopes
20. Power supplies

For further details contact: jtripat@purdue.edu or hassanein@purdue.edu