Electron temperature and electron number density measurements in laser ablation z-pinch experiments of Al₂O₃

Aluminum Oxide (Al₂O₃) plasma was generated using Ti: Sapphire/Nd: glass laser and Z-pinch pulse-power generator at University of Nevada, Reno’s Nevada Terawatt Facility. To determine the electron temperature we use the Boltzmann plot method for the transitions (Al III ²D_3/2 → ²P_1/2) at 451.38 nm, (Al III ²D_5/2 → ²P_3/2) at 453.06 nm, (Al III ²P_3/2 → ²S_1/2) at 569.82, and (Al III ²P_1/2 → ²S_1/2) at 572.43 nm. Simultaneously, Mach-Zehnder interferometry was used to measure the electron number density. We compared simulated spectra from PrismSPECT to both calculated electron number density and electron temperature measurements, and the electron temperature was found to range from 1.8 to 2.8 eV while the electron number density was found to range from 2.3 x 10¹⁷ to 6.9 x 10¹⁷ cm^-3.