Hydrocode validation for short pulse laser driven shocks in aluminum*

A joint theoretical and experimental campaign is being conducted focusing specifically on modeling shock waves in aluminum induced by a short pulse laser in the 100ps time scale regime. The goal of this study is to increase the fundamental understanding of the reaction of aluminum under laser induced compression both experimentally and through simulations.

As part of these experiments we are changing tamper materials and sample geometries to understand how this impacts the maximum pressures we can achieve using the table-top laser system. We are probing the hot electron penetration depth in the aluminum to determine the amount of aluminum turned into plasma during compression.

These experimental results in turn are used to understand the difficulties of simulating laser induced compression in ultrafast (100ps regime) timescales at lower intensities (≈ 10^10W/cm2). We have carried out several simulations using different hydrocodes for each sample geometry and laser energy. These simulations are compared to the experimental data to test the validity of the codes in the timescales of our experiment. From there, we are working to better understand why discrepancies exist between the simulation codes and the data in this regime.