A study of dynamics of a head-on collision between two laser-produced plasmas

A collision between cold and rarefied aluminium plasma with a dense and hot aluminium plasma is experimentally investigated. Both plasma clouds are pr oduced by the same laser pulse impinging on a specially designed ablation t arget. The collision region is studied by XUV time resolved photography and spectroscopy. Soon after the two plasma clouds come into touch, a dense an d stationary collision zone is formed in the space between the two targets. This collision zone by far outlives both plasma clouds that have created i t. XUV spectroscopy indicates slower cooling of the collision zone, but mor e work with different target materials is needed to see if it is possible t o generate X-ray laser emission this way.