Characterization of plasmas produced by laser-gas jet interaction

An experiment has been performed with one of the six nanosecond beams of th e Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses laser facility in orde r to create long scale uniform plasmas over a wide range of electron densit y (1x10(19)-1.6x10(20) cm(-3)) and electron temperature (0.5-1.3 keV). Elec tron density and temperature evolution have been measured using Thomson sca ttering. Numerical simulations obtained by using a simple model are present ed. Scaling law related electron density and electron temperature have been established in agreement with experimental data. (C) 2001 American Institu te of Physics.