Irradiation of dense matter by pulsed laser beams with the ultimate goal of achieving thermonuclear fusion conditions provides a challenge to high-speed diagnostics. The concentrated deposition of energy by laser pulses of typically nanosecond duration induces laser-plasma interaction phenomena and hydrodynamic motion which have to be diagnosed on a picosecond temporal and micrometre spatial scale. The high-speed diagnostics developed for this purpose, such as shadowgraphy and interferometry by probe laser beams in the visible, x-ray backlighting, time-resolved spectroscopy in the soft x-ray region, and x-ray framing, will be described and illustrated by experimental results.

Date Published: 1 February 1985
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 0491, 16th Intl Congress on High Speed Photography and Photonics, (1 February 1985); doi: 10.1117/12.968020

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0491:
16th Intl Congress on High Speed Photography and Photonics
Michel L. Andre; Manfred Hugenschmidt, Editor(s)