We present two laser driven shock wave loading techniques utilizing long pulse lasers, laser-launched flyer plate and confined laser ablation, and their applications to shock physics. The full width at half maximum of the drive laser pulse ranges from 100 ns to 10 μs, and its energy, from 10 J to 1000 J. The drive pulse is smoothed with a holographic optical element to achieve spatial homogeneity in loading. We characterize the flyer plate during flight and dynamically loaded target with temporally and spatially resolved diagnostics. The long duration and high energy of the drive pulse allow for shockless acceleration of thick flyer plates with 8 mm diameter and 0.1-2 mm thickness. With transient imaging displacement interferometry and line-imaging velocimetry, we demonstrate that the planarity (bow and tilt) of the loading is within 2-7 mrad (with an average of 4±1 mrad), similar to that in conventional techniques including gas gun loading. Plasma heating of target is negligible in particular when a plasma shield is adopted. For flyer plate loading, supported shock waves can be achieved. Temporal shaping of the drive pulse in confined laser ablation enables flexible loading, e.g., quasi-isentropic, Taylor-wave, and off-Hugoniot loading. These dynamic loading techniques using long pulse lasers (0.1-10 μs) along with short pulse lasers (1-10 ns) can be an accurate, versatile and efficient complement to conventional shock wave loading for investigating such dynamic responses of materials as Hugoniot elastic limit, plasticity, spall, shock roughness, equation of state, phase transition, and metallurgical characteristics of shock-recovered samples, in a wide range of strain rates and pressures at meso- and macroscopic scales.

Date Published: 12 May 2008
PDF: 15 pages
Proc. SPIE 7005, High-Power Laser Ablation VII, 700514 (12 May 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.782206

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7005:
High-Power Laser Ablation VII
Claude R. Phipps, Editor(s)