Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Physics

This thesis presents experimental and analytical investigations to study and diagnose the behavior of plasmas produced by the interaction of a laser beams at different laser wavelengths and different values of laser flounce with metallic solid targets. The experimental work was carried out at Laser and New Materials lab at faculty of Science - Cairo University. A sequence of three different laser wavelengths from Nd-YAG Laser was used to irradiate a plane polished solid aluminum target containing small traces of magnesium in air in a single pulse method. The laser delivers radiation at a fundamental wavelength (n0= 1064 nm, E ~ 850 mJ, 6 nsec), second harmonic (at n1= 532 nm, E = 450 mJ, 5 n sec) at the visible region and the third harmonic (at n2= 355 nm, E = 200 mJ, 5 nsec) at the UV region. The optical emission of the produced plasmas is recorded and analyzed by using an absolutely calibrated Echelle spectrograph in conjunction with an ICCD camera. For each set of delay times (0-5 os) at a fixed time gate (1 os) the experiment was repeated at each laser harmonic and transmitted energies were monitored by a power-meter

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