Abstract
The effects of atomic number Z on the energy distribution of hot electrons generated by the interaction of 60fs, 130mJ, 800nm, and 7×1017W/cm2 laser pulses with metallic targets have been studied experimentally. The results show that the number and the effective temperature of hot electrons increase with the atomic number Z of metallic targets, and the temperature of hot electrons are in the range of 190–230keV, which is consistent with a scaling law of hot electrons temperature.