Intensity enhancement in cross-beam pulsed laser ablation using two orthogonal targets

In this work we investigated a novel configuration of the orthogonal geometry for double pulse laser ablation. In this arrangement, a laser is focused onto a target generating a highly directed plume; after that, an additional laser produces a second plasma onto another perpendicular target. In this way, the second plume is expanded through the first plume region. Ablation of carbon was carried out in vacuum (10− 4 Pa) by two delayed lasers. The first pulse corresponds to a Nd:yttrium–aluminum–garnet (YAG) (1064 nm) and the second one to an excimer (248 nm) laser. Results show that plasma interactions produce different species emission enhancement depending on the delay between lasers, laser fluences and the spatial overlapping between plumes. Approximately an 100-fold increase in emission signal was measured as the observation distance grows.