Measurement of magnetic field fluctuations and diamagnetic currents within a laser ablation plasma interacting with an axial magnetic field

<jats:p>The guiding of laser ablation plasmas with axial magnetic fields has been used for many applications, since its effectiveness has been proven empirically [L. Gray et al., J. Appl. Phys. 53(10), 6628 (1982); J. Wolowski, Laser Part. Beams 20(01), 113 (2002); M. Okamura et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 81, 02A510 (2010); Y. Tsui et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 70(15), 1953 (1997); C. Pagano and J. Lunney, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 43(30), 305202 (2010)]. For more sophisticated and complicated manipulations of the plasma flow, the behavior of the magnetic field during the interaction and the induced diamagnetic current in the plasma plume needs to be clearly understood. To achieve the first milestone for establishing magnetic plasma manipulation, we measured the spatial and temporal fluctuations of the magnetic field caused by the diamagnetic current. We showed that the small fluctuations of the magnetic field can be detected by using a simple magnetic probe. We observed that the field penetrates to the core of the plasma plume. The diamagnetic current estimated from the magnetic field had temporal and spatial distributions which were confirmed to be correlated with the transformation of the plasma plume. Our results show that the measurement by the magnetic probe is an effective method to observe the temporal and spatial distributions of the magnetic field and diamagnetic current. The systematic measurement of the magnetic field variations is a valuable method to establish the magnetic field manipulation of the laser ablation plasma.</jats:p>