In this work we present the experimental results concerning the study of the plasma produced by pulsed laser irradiation of a copper target. The analysis of the generated plasma plume was performed for three different laser spot sizes determining the threshold conditions of the ablation process. A diagnostic system with a Faraday cup was developed in order to detect the ion current along the propagation tube. Time-of-flight (TOF) measurements were performed, and an adjustable voltage electrostatic barrier was employed in order to analyse the kinetic energy of the produced ions. To study the plasma characteristics we evaluated the total etched material per pulse, 1.8x1016 atoms/cm 2 , and the fractional ionisation, 36%. A modified Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution was applied to provide a consistent description of the velocity distributions in the plume. The ablated material was spatially monitored by optical transmission analysis of a deposited film.
D. et al. (Fri,) studied this question.