Electron temperature and ion velocity distribution of erosion plume under ablation of Cu target

The time-of-flight probe method was used in investigations of erosion plume in ablation of copper with 308 nm radiation of excimer XeCl laser in vacuum. The time-of-flight curves of electron and ion currents at the probe were obtained in the range from 0.2 to 2.2 J/cm -2 of energy densities at the target with probe-to-target separations from 10 to 133 mm. Multimodal distributions of ions by scatter velocities have been revealed. The voltage-current curves of probe current have been constructed in the range of probe potentials +/- 18 V. The electron temperature has been calculated for different plume regions. It has been revealed that the plume electron temperature is nonuniform.