Planar laser induced fluorescence mapping of a carbon laser produced plasma *

We present measurements of ion velocity profiles obtained by planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) on an explosive laser produced plasma (LPP) from recent experiments on the Large Plasma Device at the University of California, Los Angeles. We utilized a tunable, diode pumped solid state laser to scan through doppler shifted wavelengths in order to map out carbon ion velocities as a function of space and time. Unlike many LIF schemes that excite the ions or atoms at a wavelength different than the observed wavelength, our population is only susceptible to a two-level model where the ions are excited and fluoresce at the same wavelength. These measurements are compared to a study in which hydrodynamic and collisional-radiative simulations are used to estimate the expected signal-to-noise ratio, as well as employed to benchmark a hybrid simulation code.