Laser-Produced Plasmas from Solid Targets

This dissertation presents original research on the subject of laser-produced plasmas. Three major topics were the subject of experiments. They can be organized by the targets from which the plasmas were formed, which are palladium, silver, and carbon. But the difference in each experiment is not simply the target composition; each experiment is a study of a separate phenomenon. Chapter IV relates the study of a plasma generated from a palladium target infused with hydrogen and deuterium. This is a multicomponent plasma, and the masses of the species covers a wide range. It is a study of the lack of equilibrium between species and the effect of hydrodynamic flow on the kinetic energy distributions. Chapter V relates a study of Ag^+ ions ejected from a roughened silver surface. At lower laser powers, barely sufficient to form ions, silver ions with a kinetic energy equal to that of the surface plasmon in silver were observed. The generation of these ions meets the criteria associated with plasmon production. And chapter VI relates the study of carbon clusters, the conditions for equilibrium between clusters of various sizes, and the relationship between kinetic energy and internal energy. Chapter VII deals with three subjects that bore intriguing data but were not pursued to completion. These subjects are plasma production from high T_{rm c} superconductors, photoelectron production, and metal cluster formation.