Foil acceleration by high density ablation plasma by intense pulsed ion beam

Abstract

We studied foil acceleration driven by the reaction of a high density ablation plasma produced by irradiation of an intense pulsed light ion beam (LIE) on a solid foil target. Two kinds of diodes were used: 1) a magnetically insulated diode (MID) with energy density on a target is 300 J/cm2 and 2) a two-dimensional focused spherically shaped plasma focus diode (SPFD) with 4 kJ/cm2. We measured foil velocity up to ∼3.3 km/s for the case of SPFD and the evaluated ablation plasma pressure was ∼5 GPa, which was in good agreement with simple numerical analysis. A significant increase in hardness of the Al target was also observed. We were much interested in further studies of the acceleration process, a comparison of a precise numerical simulation, improvement of material properties of the foil target and interaction between a highly accelerated flyer and other target materials.