Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications 2005
J.-C. Gauthier, et al.
J. Phys. IV France 133 (2006) 1077-1079
DOI: 10.1051/jp4:2006133218

Isochoric heating of matter by laser-accelerated high-energy protons

P. Antici^{1, 2}, J. Fuchs¹, S. Atzeni², A. Benuzzi¹, E. Brambrink¹, M. Esposito¹, M. Koenig¹, A. Ravasio¹, J. Schreiber³, A. Schiavi² and P. Audebert<sup>1

1</sup>  Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, UMR 7605 CNRS-CEA, École Polytechnique-Univ. Paris VI, 91128 Palaiseau, France
²  Dipartimento di Energetica ed INFM, Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Via Scarpa 14-16, 00161 Roma, Italy
³  Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik and Physik Department, Ludwig-Maximilan-Universität München, 85748, Garching, Germany

Abstract
We describe an experiment on isochoric heating of matter by intense laser-accelerated protons. The experiment was performed using the LULI 100 TW facility with 15-20 J on target energy and > 10¹⁹ W.cm ^{- 2} maximum focused intensity. Focusing the laser on a 10 micron thick Au foil, we accelerated forward a laminar proton beam with a maximum energy of 16 MeV. This proton beam irradiated and heated a secondary target positioned after a variable vacuum gap. The heating was diagnosed by 1D and 2D time-resolved measurements of the optical self-emission of the heated target rear-surface. Detailed results as a function of the Z and the thickness of the secondary target as well as analysis, including a full modelling of the target heating with a 2D hydro-code (DUED) coupled to a proton energy deposition code, were obtained. We have also studied the efficiency of heating as a function of the primary target topology, i.e. either flat, which results in a diverging proton beam, or curved, which has the ability of focusing partly the proton beam.

© EDP Sciences 2006