Supersonic gas jets for laser-plasma experiments

We present an in-depth analysis of De Laval nozzles, which are ideal for gas jet generation in a wide variety of experiments. Scaling behavior of parameters especially relevant to laser-plasma experiments as jet collimation, sharpness of the jet edges and Mach number of the resulting jet is studied and several scaling laws are given. Special attention is paid to the problem of the generation of microscopic supersonic jets with diameters as small as 150 mu m. In this regime, boundary layers dominate the flow formation and have to be included in the analysis. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4719915]