Characteristics of plasma plume pulse laser ablation in vacuum

High power pulse laser ablation impulse effect can be used in the field of laser orbital debris removal. The recoil impulse of the space debris by laser ablation depends on the plasma plume expansion progress, and it will be changed by the change of laser ablation direction. Hence, it was necessary to study the characteristics of the plasma plume by laser ablation. Aim at the difficulties of ultra high speed, instantaneous condition, strong self luminescence and the small scale of the flow field, the technologies of ns exposure and precise stitching of multiple photos are adopted. Besides, the technology of controlling signal simultaneously with the high speed camera and laser power source was used. All these can achieve the ns scale time resolution and mm scale space resolution in the flow field quantitative measurement, which can be used to obtain the plasma plume evolution information. The plasma plume evolution characteristics of typical space debris material was obtained through experiments, also, the results of plasma plume expansion progress in different laser incident angle. The experimental results can reveal the change rule of the recoil impulse by pulsed laser ablation.