Characterization of plasmas produced by laser–gas jet interaction

Abstract : An experiment has been performed with one of the six nanosecond beams of the Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses laser facility in order to create long scale uniform plasmas over a wide range of electron density (1×10^19–1.6×10^20 cm^−3) and electron temperature (0.5–1.3 keV). Electron density and temperature evolution have been measured using Thomson scattering. Numerical simulations obtained by using a simple model are presented. Scaling law related electron density and electron temperature have been established in agreement with experimental data.