Study of shielding layer plasma parameters in experiments on intensive plasma stream-material interaction

Some results of a study of the plasma shielding layer (SL) which appears near the surface of a material irradiated by a plasma high heat flux (wp ≥ 10 MJ m−2) are presented. Analysis of the SL radiation in the visible and UV regions of the spectrum and also data on probing the laser beam absorption have made it possible to estimate the values of plasma density (Ne ≤ 3 × 1024 m−3) and electron temperature (Te = 3−8 eV) and have revealed that the SL plasma is optically thick for visible radiation.