Influence of Ambient Plasmas to the Field Dynamics of Laser Driven Mass-Limited Targets

Dilute plasmas surrounding mass‐limited targets provide sufficient current for influencing strong fields, which are built up due to the interaction of an intense and ultrafast laser pulse. Such situation occurs, where evaporation of the target surface is present. The high‐intensity laser pulse interacts with the quasi‐isolated mass‐limited target and the spatial wings of the intensity distribution account for ionization of the ambient plasma. A fast change of strong electrical fields following intense laser irradiation of water droplets (16 micron diameter) has been measured with proton imaging. An analytical model explains charge transport accounting for the observation.