Shock pressures induced in condensed matter by laser ablation

Abstract

The Trident laser was used to induce shock waves in samples of solid elements, with atomic numbers ranging from Be to Au, using pulses of 527 nm light around 1 ns long with irradiances of the order of 0.1 to $10\mathrm{PW}/{\mathrm{m}}^2.$ States induced by the resulting ablation process were investigated using laser Doppler velocimetry to measure the velocity history of the opposite surface. By varying the energy in the laser pulse, relations were inferred between the irradiance and the induced pressure. For samples in vacuo, an irradiance constant in time does not produce a constant pressure. Radiation hydrodynamics simulations were used to investigate the relationship between the precise pulse shape and the pressure history. In this regime of time and irradiance, it was possible to reproduce the experimental data to within their uncertainty by including conductivity-dependent deposition of laser energy, heat conduction, gray radiation diffusion, and three temperature hydrodynamics in the treatment of the plasma, with ionizations calculated using the Thomas-Fermi equation. States induced in the solid sample were fairly insensitive to the details of modeling in the plasma, so Hugoniot points may be estimated from experiments of this type given a reasonable model of the plasma. More useful applications include the generation of dynamic loading to investigate compressive strength and phase transitions, and for sample recovery.