Negative-ion emission during laser ablation of multicomponent materials

The time of flight technique coupled with an electrostatic energy filter has been used for composition and energy-distribution analysis of the ion species emitted during laser ablation of multicomponent materials Y-Ba-Cu-O, Pb-Sn-Te. The negative-ion output and kinetic-energy distribution as a function of the laser wavelength and the laser fluence on the target were measured. A high output of the negative ions of matrix elements comparable with the positive-ion emission was detected. The barium negative-ion formation was observed in spite of the negative electron affinity of alkaline earth elements in the ground electronic state. The mechanism of negative-ion formation based on the ternary collisional recombination in the laser plasma is analyzed.