Plasma in a Trap: How Copper Blows a Bubble in Helium
A copper plate the size of a coin vaporizes under the laser's strike in billionths of a second. The hot copper cloud slams into cold helium like a jet of steam into frosty air. The images show a distinct bubble with thin filaments at the edges — the plasma doesn't expand uniformly but breaks into fibers as thin as a human hair.