Experimental study on laser ablating different materials in atmosphere

In order to investigate the laser ablation propulsion property of different materials in atmosphere, experiments are conducted, with a Nd:YAG passive Q-switch solid laser (single pulse energy 66mJ, pulse width 70ns) as energy source, black rubber, gray PVC, brass and SiC as testing materials. As results, the momentum coupling coefficients of the measured materials rise first and then fall with the increase of laser power density, which agrees with the observation of aluminum in vacuum. Among the tested materials gray PVC shows the lowest plasma ignition threshold, which is 0.86x10⁸w/cm², and highest momentum coupling coefficient, which is 11.83dyne/w.