An Investigation of Laser Produced Lead-Tin Alloy Plasmas between 10 and 18 nm

Abstract

The results of a systematic study performed on Pb-Sn alloys of concentration 65–35% and 94–6% by weight along with spectra from pure Pb and Sn in the wavelength range of 9.8–18 nm are presented. The dynamics of the Nd:YAG laser produced plasma were changed by varying the focused spot size and input energy of the laser pulse; the laser irradiance at the target varied from 7.3 × 109 W cm−2 to 1.2 × 1012 W cm−2. The contributing ion stages and line emission are identified using the steady state collisional radiative model of Colombant and Tonon, and the Cowan suite of atomic structure codes. The Sn spectrum was dominated in each case by the well-known unresolved transition array (UTA) near 13.5 nm. However, a surprising result was the lack of any enhancement or narrowing of this feature at low concentrations of Sn in the alloy spectra whose emission was essentially dominated by Pb ions.