Measurement by XUV laser radiography of hydrodynamic perturbations in laser accelerated thin foil targets

摘要

A novel diagnostic application of XUV lasers has been developed for the study of the hydrodynamic imprinting of laser speckle pattern on directly driven laser fusion targets. A neon-like Yttrium laser operating at 15.5 nm is used to probe thin foils of Si irradiated with an SSD smoothed laser at 0.35 mm wavelength and 6 10(sup 12) Wcm(sup (minus)2) intensity, simulating the initial phase of irradiation a laser fusion capsule. Measurements of the perturbations in target opacity are made by XUV radiography through the foil. The magnitude and Fourier composition of the perturbations has been determined both before and after Rayleigh Taylor growth showing the mode spectra of both the initial imprint and the subsequent RT growth.