Screening of laser radiation by the damage products of different metals

Simultaneous measurements were made of the time dependences of the coefficients of transmission, scattering, and absorption of ruby laser radiation probing an erosion jet in a direction perpendicular to its axis at a distance of 1.5 mm from the target. The erosion jet was formed when targets made of ten different materials were subjected to radiation from a neodymium laser operating in the free-lasing regime with a pulse energy of ~1.5 kJ and duration of ~1 msec. The measurements were used to propose an explanation of the influence of the thermophysical parameters of the metals on the absorption and scattering of the probe radiation by the target damage products.