SPECIES RESOLVED ANALYSIS OF THE EXPANSION OF HYDROXYAPATITE LASER-ABLATION PLUMES

The plume generated by ablation of hydroxyapatite targets under ArF ex cimer laser irradiation has been investigated by means of fast intensi fied charge coupled device (CCD) imaging and optical emission spectros copy. Results have shown that the plume splits into two plasma clouds as it expands. Time and spatial resolved spectra have revealed that un der the experiment conditions emission is mostly due to calcium neutra l atoms and calcium oxide molecular radicals. Imaging of the plume wit h the aid of bandpass filters has demonstrated that the emissive speci es in the larger and faster plasma cloud an calcium neutral atoms wher eas in the smaller and slower one are calcium oxide molecular radicals .