Shadowgraphic and interferometric investigations on Nd:YAG laser-induced vapor/plasma plumes for different processing wavelengths

Shadowgraphic and interferometric images of vapor/plasma plumes generated by pulses of a ns-Nd:YAG laser reveal the distinctive behavior of the shock wave expansion for each of three processing wavelengths (1064 nm, 532 nm, and 355 nm), indicating that different mechanisms dominate the interaction between the optical fields and the material vapor/plasma. Electron density distributions within the plasma plumes calculated from interferometrically obtained refractive index distributions allow us to describe the regions of absorption and the absorption mechanisms using a simple model of inverse bremsstrahlung and photoionization, which allows us to estimate absorption coefficients.