Impulse measurement of laser induced ablation in a vacuum

An impulse measurement system based on a simple pendulum is newly developed. The system has a resolution of 10 −7 Ns for ablation events induced by a single laser at a pulse rate of 2 Hz or less. For ablation events at 10 Hz and above, the system can record the impulse as an average force. The impul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inOptics express Vol. 28; no. 18; pp. 25723 - 25729
Main Authors Tsuno, Katsuhiko, Wada, Satoshi, Ogawa, Takayo, Ebisuzaki, Toshikazu, Fukushima, Tadanori, Hirata, Daisuke, Yamada, Jun, Itaya, Yuki
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 31.08.2020
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Summary:An impulse measurement system based on a simple pendulum is newly developed. The system has a resolution of 10 −7 Ns for ablation events induced by a single laser at a pulse rate of 2 Hz or less. For ablation events at 10 Hz and above, the system can record the impulse as an average force. The impulse generated by a Nd:YAG pulse laser irradiating a 7075 aluminum alloy is investigated in vacuum. The impulse arises at 3 J/cm 2 and the momentum coupling factor, C m , plateaus at approximately 20 μNs/J over a range of 5 to 50 J/cm 2 without producing a plasma shielding effect. C m is characterized by only fluence independent of pulse width in the range of 10 to 20 ns. This result indicates that it should be feasible to deorbit a 150 kg abandoned satellite at an altitude of 1200 km using a chaser satellite equipped with a 100 W laser.
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ISSN:1094-4087
1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/OE.399119