Image Analysis of Plasma Induced by Focused IR Pulsed Laser

Plasma induced by focused laser beam is very essential especially in laser material interaction. Preliminary study leading to this research has been carried out. A Q-switch Nd:YAG laser was employed as a source of energy. The laser was focused using a wide-angle camera lens. The formation of plasma at the focal region was visualized perpendicularly using a CCD video camera interfaced to an image processing system. The dynamic expansion of the laser plasma was grabbed in conjunction with a high-speed photographic system. The observation results show that the plasma was formed in an ellipsoidal shape. The lateral width and the length of the plasma were found gradually increased with respect to the energy. However the intensity of the plasma beam was discovered as a nonlinear effect.