Diagnostic Study of an Fe-Ni Alloy Plasma Generated by the Fundamental (1064 nm) and Second (532 nm) Harmonics of an Nd: YAG Laser

We studied the spatial evolution of the Fe-Ni plasma generated by the fundamental (1064 nm) and second (532 nm) harmonics of a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser. The experimentally observed line profiles of the neutral iron (Fe I) have been used to extract the plasma temperature (Te) using the Boltzmann plot method, whereas the electron number density (Ne) has been determined from the Stark broadening. In addition, we studied the spatial behavior of Te and Ne with the variation of laser energy for iron plasma by placing the target material (iron-nickel alloy) in air at atmospheric pressure for both modes of the Nd: YAG laser.