Femtosecond laser energy deposition in strongly absorbing cluster gases diagnosed by blast wave trajectory analysis

An intense ultrafast laser pulse can be very strongly absorbed in a moderate density gas composed of van der Waals bonded clusters. In this paper, the deposition of the energy of intense 30 fs light pulses in a gas of deuterium clusters has been diagnosed using a technique based on analysis of the trajectories of the resulting cylindrically symmetric blast waves. Using the well-known relation between blast wave velocity and energy deposition in gas, the laser energy deposited per unit length as a function of distance in gas jet plume was measured. These measurements were conducted in jets containing either deuterium clusters or simple deuterium molecules.