Features of metal destruction under pulse laser and beam-plasma exposure

Abstract

The features of the destructive effect of high-pressure generated under comparable conditions, namely, upon irradiation of target samples with pulsed laser radiation and beam-plasma flows created in Plasma Focus (PF) devices, on metal materials were studied. In both cases, close parameters of radiation-heat treatment were provided: power density q ~ 1010–1011 W/cm2 and pulse duration τ ~ 10 –100 ns. It have been shown that the double exposure of laser radiation to thin samples of vanadium and molybdenum with a thickness of 0.3 mm and 0.1 mm, respectively, leads to the formation of molten zones in the materials, inside which there were deep craters. The craters extended over the entire thickness of the samples, on the reverse side of which the recesses end with holes of ~ 0.1 mm for V and 0.2 mm for Mo. In a tungsten sample 0.2 mm thick, the depth of the craters in the molten zone was less than its thickness and there were microcracks on the back of the sample. Based on numerical estimates of the process under study, it was suggested that the observed effects are associated with the creation of high pressure zones of ~ 1 – 10 GPa in the irradiated targets, localized in microregions of radius r ~ 0.1 mm. In these zones, the behavior of the solid phase of the target materials, for which the tensile strength σB ≤ 1 GPa (V, Mo, W), under high pressure became close to the behavior of the liquid. The pseudo-liquid phase of the material was displaced from the center of the crater, where the pressure was maximum, to its periphery to the region of low pressure with the subsequent release of matter from the target through the irradiated surface at a speed of ~ 103 m/s. In experiments using the PF, the mechanism responsible for the formation of craters when a powerful pulsed laser radiation is applied to the target is not realized due to the different nature of the distribution of the absorbed energy density in the surface layer of the irradiated sample. The region in which the energy absorbed during the of particles implantation into the material was determined mainly by the average energy and the diameter of the ion beam (Еi ≈ 100 keV, d ~ 2 – 10 mm) and exceeds by one or two orders of magnitude the corresponding volume under laser irradiation.