Absorption of ultrashort laser pulses in solid targets

Femtosecond laser pulses are capable of producing very high light intensities at moderate pulse energies. We study the laser light absorption at flux densities of 10 17 W/cm 2 and higher during the plasma formation and the plasma heating process. In the first stage multiphoton and collisional ionization dominate. Modification of the inverse bremsstrahlung absorption occur owing to ionization dephasing. In the second stage beam energy conversion...