Model based plasma monitoring methods for the predictive assessment of LSP applications

The most simplified methods reported in the literature for the analysis of the LSP phenomenology try to induce the intensity and temporal profile of the shock wave launched into the treated solid material by means of the analysis of the impulse conservation between the external interface of such material and the frontier of the confining material without any reference to the detailed physics of the plasma formation process taking place in the outermost layers of the solid target: this plasma is assumed to be built up to certain degree as a consequence of the initial laser energy deposition, but no analysis is provided about its real dynamics.