Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2007
A time-resolved diagnostic technique was used to investigate the emission spectra from the plasmas produced by 1.06 μm, 10 ns pulsed laser ablation of semiconductor GaAs. The characteristics of the species in plasma produced at different ambient pressure were analyzed. The full width at half maximum of the spectral line was measured and analyzed according to obtained spectra of the excited atoms; several line broadening factors were estimated according to our experimental conditions and the results indicate that the Stark broadening is the main broadening mechanism. Under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium, the time evolution of electron number density was deduced from the Stark broadening measurements.