Modelling of the creation phase of an aluminium laser-induced plasma

Laser induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS) is more and more used as diagnostic method in spite of an awkward drawback. Comparison experimental spectra with databanks are obligatory to determine composition of a material with this technique. Modelling the creation phase of this kind of plasma allow to understand the global phenomenon and avoid to resort to databanks. In this work, a 1D model is elaborated with the purpose of providing a complete description of the ablation of an aluminium alloy target. Phenomena as solid heating, vaporisation step vapour excitation and ionisation processes, among others, are taken into account. The plasma is assumed to be composed of Al, Al⁺ and Al⁺⁺ and free electrons interacting through five processes. The model is able to predict recombination phase of the plasma which can be compare with experiment.