A study was made of the cooling of the laser induced vapor plume in background air.The temperature and size variations of the vapor plume were determined from spectroscopic measurements during the first few tens of micro-seconds after the laser pulse. Experiments were carried out over a range of laser spot sizes and energies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keywords Laser ablation, plasma cooling, thermal radiation decrease of the vapor plume was independent of the plume size, shape, and position. For 1 larger optical thicknesses of the vapor plume, the calculations showed that the reflectivity of the sample surface and the size of the vapor plume would dramatically affect cooling of the vapor plume.2