Interaction of a smoothed laser beam with supercritical-density porous targets on the ABC facility

We present the results of experiments on the interaction of laser radiation with low-density porous targets performed on the ABC facility at the ENEA Research Centre (Frascati, Italy). Porous plastic targets with densities of 5 and 20 mg cm^-3 were irradiated by a focused neodymium-laser beam at the fundamental frequency (λ = 1.054 μm) at a radiation intensity of 10¹³ W cm^-2 at the target. The beam was preliminarily allowed to pass through an optical system intended to spatially smooth the radiation intensity over the beam cross section. The use a smoothed beam was important to discover in the plasma and in the accelerated dense material the features related to the porous structure of the target under conditions which rule out the effect of the inhomogeneities of the heating beam itself. The spatial plasma structure in the laser beam–target interaction region and at the rear side of the target were investigated by using optical schlieren plasma photography. The time dependent transmission of the laser radiation through the target was also investigated by imaging the target in transmitted radiation to a properly masked photodiode.