Laser-induced shock waves in condensed matter: some techniques and applications

Abstract

Laser-induced shock waves in condensed matter have important applications in dynamic material studies and high pressure physics. We briefly review some techniques in laser-induced shock waves, including direct laser drive, laser-launched flyer plate, quasi-isentropic loading, point and line imaging velocity interferometry, transient X-ray diffraction, spectroscopy and shock recovery, and their applications to study of equation of state, spallation, and phase transitions.

Keywords:

• Laser shock waves
• Velocity interferometry
• Transient X-ray diffraction
• Ellipsometry
• Equation of state
• Spallation

Acknowledgements

One of the authors (S.N.L.) is sponsored by a Director's Postdoctoral Fellowship at LANL. The authors are grateful for the invaluable support from the Trident laser facility and staff at LANL. O.T. acknowledges support by the NNSA Cooperative Agreement DE-FC88- 01NV14049. Use of the HPCAT facility was supported by DOE-BES, DOE-NNSA, NSF, DOD-TACOM, and the W.M. Keck Foundation. This work was performed in part under the auspices of US Department of Energy under contract #W-7405-ENG-36.