Influence of additional external pressure on optical emission intensity in liquid-phase laser ablation

We examined the influence of additional external pressure on the optical emission intensity from plasmas produced by laser ablation of a Ti target immersed in distilled water. We adopted two methods for applying the external pressure. When ambient water was pressurized by connecting the ablation chamber to N2 gas at a pressure range of 0.1–0.9 MPa, we observed the increase in the optical emission intensity with the pressure. This increase was considered to be caused by the change in the amount of dissolved N2 gas in the water. On the other hand, when an external pressure of 30 MPa was applied to ambient water by using a mechanical pump, we observed the compression of the spatial distribution of the optical emission intensity. These experimental results suggest a possibility that chemical reactions and physical states (pressure and temperature) of liquid-phase laser-ablation plasmas can be controlled by adding external pressure to ambient liquid.