Isotope enrichment in highly-charged ionic species of ultrafast laser ablation plumes

Summary form only given. As reported recently for boron and gallium, we have measured factors greater than 2 for isotopic enrichment in the multiple-charge state ions from ultrafast laser ablation plasmas. The earlier work has now been extended to the elements Zn, Ti, and Cu. These results confirm the enrichment of the lighter isotope on the target-normal axis of the expanding ablation plume. Angular scans of these plumes demonstrate the persistence of the enrichment effect to wide angle, being present as far out as 45 degrees from the normal direction. Systematic variations in the dominant ion species and their energy distributions, as a function of charge state, are observed in these angular scans.