Evolution of laser-induced carbon particle breakdown in gas.

We investigate the evolution of the laser-induced breakdown of a suspended micrometer-sized carbon particle at 460 torr N2 gas environment. An elliptical hot gas resulting from the ionizations of the particle breakdown and the gas breakdown is observed. We show that the deformation of the elliptical gas starts from the vertical direction and the counterpropagating flows leads to a protruding tail at later stage. The rarefaction wave is suspected to be responsible for the deformation of the gas core and the formation of the vortex ring structure, which is different from the previous laser-induced gas breakdown investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]