Abstract

Intense femtosecond excitation of solid targets has been used to produce and measure the properties of solid density plasmas¹ and pressurized liquids². In several recent studies¹ the ultrafast reflectivity response was observed with a single intense pulse serving both as excitation and optical probe. Consequently, the competing processes of electron heating and hydrodynamic surface expansion, which influence the reflectivity to different degrees and at different times, could be resolved only by a numerical deconvolution of single pulse data. In addition free electron metals were strongly emphasized¹.

© 1992 The Author(s)