Observation of plasma waves by Thomson scattering: Saturation of stimulated Raman scattering

Thomson scattering was used to probe the frequency and wave-number spectra of plasma waves driven in a plasma by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). SRS was excited in exploding foil targets with a 1.06 {μ}m wavelength laser with average intensities up to 10¹⁵ W/cm². The spectra show that the plasma waves are consistent with the linear SRS dispersion relation. Observed broadening of the spectrum towards smaller wave number is consistent with saturation of SRS by Langmuir decay for these conditions.