Observation of fs-laser spallative ablation using soft X-ray laser probe

The initial stages of femtosecond laser ablation of gold were observed by single-shot soft X-ray laser interferometer and reflectometer. The ablation front surface and the spallation shell dome structure were observed from the results of the soft X-ray interferogram, reflective image, and shadowgraph. The formation and evolution of soft X-ray Newton’s rings (NRs) were found by reflective imaging at the early stages of the ablation dynamics. The soft X-ray NRs are caused by the interference between the bulk ablated surface and nanometer-scale thin spallation layer. The spallation layer was kept at the late timing of the ablation dynamics, and the height of that reached over 100 μm. The temporal evolution of the bulk ablated surface was observed in the ablation dynamics. From these results, we have succeeded in obtaining the temporal evolution of the ablation front exfoliated from the gold surface.