Applied Physics A (2018) 124:124

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-017-1516-y

Compression and heating of a laser-produced plasma using single

and double induction coils
J. R. Creel1 · J. G. Lunney1 

Received: 27 October 2017 / Accepted: 22 December 2017

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
The results of an experiment on magnetohydrodynamic compression and heating of a laser-produced plasma in vacuum are
described. The plasma was produced by laser ablation of copper at 2 J cm−2. A pulsed magnetic field, with an amplitude
of 0.3 T and a period of 2.2 µs, was produced by a three-turn spiral induction coil placed 10 mm above the ablation spot.
Time-resolved imaging revealed that the magnetic field had a strong influence on both the plasma between the coil and the
target, and on the plasma which flows through the aperture in the coil. The plasma flow through the coil aperture is strongly
pinched due to the Lorentz interaction of the induced current and the coil magnetic field. Heating of the plasma is evidenced
by strong enhancement of the overall visible light emission and the appearance of ­Cu+ line emission. Magnetic compression
and plasma heating were also observed in a setup using two induction coils separated by 10 mm. This technique could be
used to enhance the sensitivity of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, increase the ion yield in laser plasma ion sources,
or control the ablation plume expansion in pulsed laser deposition.

1 Introduction cost of increasing the consumption rate of the material to

For several decades, nanosecond (ns) pulsed laser deposition
(PLD) has been used as an effective method of making thin
film materials for research [1–3]. In PLD, a pulsed laser is
used to ablate a small amount of material from a solid target
in vacuum. The plume of ablated material expands away
from the target surface and is condensed on a suitable sub-
strate. There are many reports of using magnetic fields [4–9]
and plasma currents [10, 11] to change the shape and state of
excitation of the ablation plume, with a view to improving
the deposition process. Particulate filters, based on guiding
the laser-produced plasma (LPP) along a curving magnetic
field, have also been investigated [12]. A plasma lens, based
on a combination of static electric and magnetic fields, has
been used to focus the LPP, and so concentrate the deposi-
tion [13].
Laser-produced plasma is used for laser-induced break-
down spectroscopy (LIBS) [14] and light sources for metrol-
ogy [10, 15]. While increasing the laser energy gives an
increase in the light emission from the LPP, it comes at the
* J. G. Lunney
JLUNNEY@tcd.ie
1
School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, The University
of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
be analysed. Thus, it is of interest to consider secondary
excitation of the LPP using an electrical discharge [10, 11,
16, 17]. Creel et al. [16] have shown that visible light output
from a LPP can be increased by more than 30 times using
a planar pulsed magnetic field coil at 10 mm in front of the
ablation spot. It was also observed that the plasma trans-
mitted through a central aperture in the coil was strongly
focused. This paper describes the results of an experiment to
compare the heating and compression of LPP in single-coil
and double-coil induction setups.
2 Experimental methods
The LPP was formed by laser ablation of a copper (Cu) tar-
get in a vacuum chamber at ­10−5 mbar using a 248 nm 20 ns
excimer laser operating at 1 Hz. The laser beam was focused
to a 2 mm diameter spot giving an average laser fluence of
~  2 J ­cm−2 on the target. The experimental configurations for
the single-coil and double-coil setups are shown in Fig. 1a
and b, respectively. In the single-coil setup, a Cu disc of
20 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness was used. It was rotated
at 2 Hz to avoid making a deep ablation crater. A three-turn,
planar, spiral induction coil was placed 10 mm above the
copper target so that the ablation spot lay on the axis of

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Fig. 1  a Single-coil and b double-coil induction setups, showing the target geometries, induction coils and laser ablation plumes
the coil (z-axis). At this distance the magnetic field due to
a current in the coil was only slightly diminished by eddy
currents in the target. There was a 10 mm diameter aperture
in the coil, through which part of the ablation plume was
transmitted. The double-coil setup used two similar three-
turn, planar induction coils, wound in the same direction,
placed 10 mm apart. The Cu target was positioned on axis
at the centre of one coil. In this case, a small target of 2 mm
diameter was used to minimize effects due to eddy currents.
Both induction coils had a 10 mm diameter aperture.
In the single-coil setup, the planar induction coil was
connected to a 470 nF capacitor charged to 1.5 kV. The dis-
charge was switched using a solid-state switch, and the tim-
ing of the current pulse was controlled with respect to the
laser pulse. For the double-coil setup, the same capacitor and
charging voltage were used. The two coils were connected in
parallel, thus splitting the current between the coils. The dis-
charge current was measured using a Rogowski coil. In the
single-coil setup, the current oscillation was underdamped
with a period of 2.2 µs and the first maximum was 1050 A.
The discharge was unchanged by the presence of the LPP,
indicating weak energy coupling to the plasma. The dis-
charge characteristic was quite similar for the double coil.
The distributions of the magnetic field were calculated
using COMSOL Multiphysics [18], and are shown in Fig. 2a
for 1050 A in the single-coil setup, and in Fig. 2b for a total
current of 1250 A in the double-coil setup. The magnetic
field distributions at other times were determined from the
measured current. For 1050 A the z-component of the mag-
netic field is ~ 0.3 T at the centre of the coil and ~ 1.0 T near
the inner edge of the single-coil aperture.
As expected the magnetic field is quite uniform in the
region between the coils of the double-coil setup, with the
13
J. R. Creel, J. G. Lunney
z-component reaching a value of ~ 0.2 T at the centre of
each coil.
A Langmuir ion probe was used to measure the forward
velocity of the plasma plume to synchronize the arrival time
of the plasma plume at the induction coil to the phase of the
current pulse. The Langmuir probe was also used to estimate
the plasma load at the coil. Fast (ns) imaging and space- and
time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy were used to
measure the plasma dynamics and determine the degree of
plasma heating. For imaging and spectroscopy, the intensi-
fied charged coupled detector (ICCD) was operated with a
200 ns gate width for the single-coil setup and 100 ns for
double-coil setup.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Discharge characteristics and fast imaging
The timing of the current pulse relative to the laser pulse was
controlled to maximize the integrated visible light emission,
as recorded by the ICCD. The ion probe signal at 15 cm
from the target was used to determine the ion flux at the coil
position. As shown in Fig. 3a, the ion flux at 10 mm is at a
maximum at ~ 600 ns after the laser pulse. In the single-coil
case, the light output is maximized when the timing of the
current pulse is chosen such that the magnetic field reaches
a maximum value at the same time as the peak ion flux at
the coil, as shown in Fig. 3a.
In Fig. 3b, it can be seen that the light output is maxi-
mized at the times when B = 0, but dB/dt is maximum, indi-
cating the dominant role of inductive heating.
Compression and heating of a laser-produced plasma using single and double induction coils Page 3 of 8  124

Fig. 2  COMSOL simulations showing the z-component of the magnetic field for a 1050 A in the single coil and b 1250 A in the double coil,
without the plasma

Fig. 4  a Total current pulse in the coils of the double-coil setup, ion
current density due to plasma flow midway between the coils, and the
photodiode signal of laser pulse. b Optical radiance integrated over
the whole plasma without, and with, discharge, normalized to the no-
field case at 50 ns
Fig. 3  a Current pulse in the magnet coil, ion current density due to
plasma flow at the coil centre, and the photodiode signal of the laser
pulse for the single-coil setup. b Optical radiance integrated over the
whole plasma without, and with, discharge, normalized to the no-field
case at 100 ns

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For the double-coil case (Fig. 4a), the overall optical
emission was maximized when the timing of the current
pulse was arranged so that the time of the ion flux maximum
(~ 300 ns), at the midpoint between the coils (5 mm from
target), occurs somewhat before the time of the first maxi-
mum of the magnetic field. The difference in behaviour is
due to the fact that while the B-field between the two coils
is relatively uniform, the single-coil setup produces a field
that is peaked at the coil position. Like the single coil, in the
double-coil setup the light output is peaked at the maximum
of dB/dt, as shown in Fig. 4b.
The ICCD camera was used to record the visible light
emission from the plume both without (ND), and with (D),
excitation of the induction coils. The images include both
the target surface and the coil. The centre of the ablation
spot is at x = 0, z = 0. The plasma emission is obscured by
the coil at z = 10 mm. The colour bars show the counts per
pixel summed over 50 ablation pulses.
Fig. 5  Plasma images at a 1100 ns and b 2500 ns, without (ND) and with (D), magnetic excitation in the single-coil setup. The colour scale is
labelled in counts per pixel for 50 plasma pulses
13
J. R. Creel, J. G. Lunney
Figure  5a shows images of the plasma emission at
1100 ns after the laser pulse. The free ablation (ND) plume
displays the usual semi-ellipsoidal shape. At this time, the
plume front on axis has advanced to just beyond the coil,
indicating a plume front velocity of ~ 1.6 cm μs−1, con-
sistent with the ion probe measurement. In the discharge
case, the radiance distribution is quite different, and in the
brightest regions is ~ 5 times higher than the radiance of
the free ablation case. At a slightly later time of 1300 ns,
the spatially integrated optical emission is ~ 30 times
higher, as shown in Fig. 3. At this time, dB/dt and the
inductive plasma heating are maximized. Spectral imag-
ing (not shown here) also revealed that the two lobes of
emission near the coil are mainly due to Cu II spectral
line emission, indicating intense heating in that region.
In fact, there is a ring of intense emission near the coil,
which appears as a two-lobe pattern when viewed side-on.
Compression and heating of a laser-produced plasma using single and double induction coils Page 5 of 8  124
Figure 5b shows the plasma images taken at 2500 ns in
the single-coil setup. In the ND image, the outer edges of the
plume beyond the coil have been skimmed by the coil aper-
ture. The maximum value of the counts per pixel is 3500.
With the magnetic field (D) the plume image is dramatically
different; the maximum pixel count is 3 × 105. The plasma
propagated through the coil aperture is strongly focused.
This focusing can be understood, in the framework of resis-
tive MHD, as being due to a Lorentz interaction between the
induced current in the plasma and the B-field of the coil [16].
The very bright image at 2500 ns is due to the high value
of magnetic induction at that time (Fig. 3b). As previously
reported, Cu films were deposited on glass substrates placed
10 mm beyond the coil [16]. With the pulsed magnetic field
the deposition was concentrated into a much smaller area
and the deposition rate increased by a factor of 35 over the
no-field case. This observation shows that with the pulsed
magnetic field the material transmitted through the coil is
nearly fully ionized.
Fig. 6  Plasma images at a 1050 ns and b 2500 ns, without (ND) and with (D), magnetic excitation in the double-coil setup. The colour scale is
labelled in counts per pixel for 50 plasma pulses
Figure 6 shows plume images at 1050 ns (a) and 2050 ns
(b), without and with the magnetic field, in the double-coil
setup. As expected, the images without the field (ND) are
quite similar to those for the single-coil case. With the mag-
netic field the emission at 1050 ns from the region between
the coils is enhanced by a factor of ~ 30. At this time the
induced emf in the plasma is at a maximum (Fig. 4). The
emission is also more cylindrical in shape than in the ND
case. The emission from the region beyond the coil at 10 mm
is also enhanced by the same factor. At 2050 ns (Fig. 6b) the
plasma transmitted through the coil aperture is compressed
towards the axis in the same manner as in the single coil
case, but to a lesser extent, perhaps because the current in
each coil is about half the value in the single coil case.
3.2 Emission spectroscopy
Absolutely calibrated, space- and time-resolved optical
emission spectroscopy was used to measure the plasma
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 124   Page 6 of 8
density and temperature for both coil setups. The image of
the plume at the spectrometer slit was arranged so that the
z-axis of the plume lay along the slit, thus providing spatial
resolution along that axis. The spectra corresponding to the
plume images in Figs. 5 and 6 are shown in Figs. 7 and 8,
respectively. The spectral radiance colour scale is in units
of W m−2 nm−1 sr−1. Spectral regions where Cu I and Cu
II lines predominate are indicated in Figs. 7 and 8. Without
the pulsed magnetic field (Figs. 7a, b and 8a, b), the most
intense lines are due to the following Cu I transitions in
neutral copper: 3­ d9 ­4s2 2D5/2–3d10 4p 2P3/2 (510.55 nm), Cu
I ­3d10 4p 2P1/2–3d10 4d 2D3/2 (515.32 nm), and Cu I 3­ d10 4p
2
P3/2–3d10 4d 2D3/2,5/2 (522.01, 521.82 nm) [19]. As expected
the longitudinal extent of these lines is longer at later times,
consistent with the ablation plume images. For both coil
setups, turning on the magnetic field leads to the appearance
of a large number of lines mainly due to Cu II, as shown in
Figs. 7a, b and 8a, b. These spectra clearly indicate inductive
Fig. 7  Space-resolved spectra of the plasma in the single-coil setup at a t = 1100 ns and b t = 2500 ns, without (ND) and with (D) pulsed mag-
netic field. Colour bars indicate spectral radiance in W m−2 nm−1 sr−1
13
J. R. Creel, J. G. Lunney
heating of the plasma both between the target and the coil at
10 mm, and beyond that coil.
To determine the plasma densities and temperatures
without and with inductive heating, the emission spec-
tra were fitted using the spectral synthesis code Prism-
SPECT [20]. Essentially, the ratios of lines emanating
from states of different excitation energy, and from differ-
ent ion stages, constrain the value of electron temperature
T e, while the absolute value of the spectral radiance is
related to the plasma density. At low Te, where the spec-
tral radiance is very sensitive to temperature, the ion
probe signal was used to improve the estimate of plasma
density. Using ion signal together with fitting the ND
spectrum at 1100 ns in a region at 8 mm from the target
(Fig. 7a) gave Te ~ 0.6 ± 0.1 eV and a total atom/ion den-
sity ni ~ 1.7 × 1013 cm−3. The plasma thickness was taken
from the ICCD image (Fig. 5a), and the value was 11 mm.
In comparison with the discharge, for the same distance
Compression and heating of a laser-produced plasma using single and double induction coils Page 7 of 8  124
Fig. 8  Space-resolved spectra of the plasma in the double-coil setup at a t = 1050 ns and b t = 2050 ns, without (ND) and with (D) pulsed mag-
netic field. Colour bars indicate spectral radiance in W m−2 nm−1 sr−1
from the target, Te ~ 1.5 ± 0.1 eV and ni ~ 4.5 × 1013 cm−3.
At 2500 ns the plasma temperature is increased from ~ 0.6
to ~ 2.4 eV. This degree of heating is in agreement with an
estimate of the Joule heating by induced azimuthal current
density in the plasma [16].
Figure 8 shows the space-resolved spectra for the dou-
ble-coil setup at (a) 1050 ns and (b) 2050 ns. As for the sin-
gle coil, the pulsed magnetic field leads to plasma heating
and the appearance of ionized Cu emission lines. For the
case without discharge at 1050 ns, the plasma temperature
at 9 mm was found to be Te ~ 0.7 ± 0.1 eV with the total
atom/ion density ni ~ 1.5 × 1013 cm−3. With the discharge,
the plasma temperature is increased to T e ~ 1.7 ± 0.1 eV
and atom/ion density n i   ~  1.0 × 10 14   cm −3 ; a similar
increase in plasma temperature was seen at 2050 ns. Simi-
lar increases are observed at 2050 ns in the plasma beyond
the coil at 10 mm.
4 Conclusion
This experiment shows that pulsed magnetic induction can
be used to heat and compress a LPP. The performance of
a single-coil and a double-coil setup is compared. In most
aspects, the behaviour of the two setups is quite similar
though the double-coil arrangement leads to a more uni-
formly emitting plasma in the region between the target
and the coil at 10 mm. Focusing of the plasma transmitted
through the coil aperture at 10 mm is observed in both
cases. Typically, the application of the pulsed field leads
to an increase of the electron temperature from ~ 0.6 to
~ 2.4 eV, the appearance of Cu II line emission, and a 30
times increase on the overall visible emission. The plasma
density is sufficiently low to avoid Stark broadening of the
spectral lines. Thus, it seems that this method of pulsed
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 124   Page 8 of 8
inductive heating may find application in laser-induced
breakdown spectroscopy in vacuum. The concentration of
deposited material in the double-coil setup may find appli-
cation in PLD of thin films. In particular, it would be of
interest to explore, if the focusing of the deposited mate-
rial observed with the single coil, leads to an improvement
of the stoichiometry of films of compound materials, such
as ­LaxCa1 − x ­MnO3 where the masses of different elements
play a role in the angular composition variations [21]. The
understanding of the device can be improved by numeri-
cal MHD modeling. It would be of interest to explore how
the coil geometry could be optimized to further enhance
the plasma optical emission. This optimization would be
greatly facilitated by having a numerical MHD model of
the overall system.
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