A diagnostic is proposed for determining the density of laser-generated plasmas. The scheme exploits surface harmonics generated by short, intense laser pulses reflected from an overdense plasma layer. At sufficiently high intensities (Iλ²>10¹⁸ W cm^-2), the reflected spectrum contains harmonics well above the plasma frequency, corresponding to the maximum plasma density. The transmitted spectrum, on the other hand, exhibits a low-frequency cutoff for {ω}ωₚ, offering a simple means of deducing the plasma density.
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Gibbon et al. (1997) studied this question.