Characteristics of target interaction with high power UV laser radiation

Thermal conduction, mass ablation rate, pressure and preheat were investigated in the interaction of a frequency tripled Nd: glass laser of power 0.-0.2 TW with flat targets. In the range $\text{10}{}^{13}\text{?10}{}^{15}\text{W}\text{cm}{}^2$ for 400 ps pulses we find: (a) thermal conduction may be described by a flux limiter f = 0.04 ± 0.01; (b) the mass abaltion rate depends on the incident laser irradiance as $\text{m}\text{?}\text{= 4.4 × 10}{}^5\text{(I/10}{}^{14}\text{)}{}^{0.53}\text{g cm}{}^{-2}\text{s}{}^{-1}$; (c) the pressure near the ablation surface increases approximately linearly with irradiance and is about 70 Mbar at 10¹⁵ W/cm², and (d) preheat as evidenced by K_α X-ray line emission is significantly lower than in λ = 1.05 μm irradiation.