Time-resolved spectroscopic study of laser-plasma interaction in experiments with burn-through targets

Abstract

We report on experiments conducted on the "Mishen" facility, in which thin burn-through and thick planar plastic foil targets were irradiated with a single 1.054 μm laser beam at intensities of ~5•1012 - 1014 W/cm2. Features of the stimulated Brillouin scattering along with the processes of resonance absorption, ion acoustic decay instability, and two- plasmon decay instability were studied. Interaction processes were identified from analysis of time behavior of backscattered light spectra at fundamental laser frequency, second and three-halves harmonics, as well as from transmitted light measurements. Experiments with obliquely irradiated targets of different types were also carried out and some interesting results were obtained. Comparison of the results with the published data is presented.