Evaluation of a foam buffer target design for spatially uniform ablation of laser-irradiated plasmas.

Experimental observations are presented demonstrating that the use of a gold-coated foam layer on the surface of a laser-driven target substantially reduces its hydrodynamic breakup during the acceleration phase. The data suggest that this results from enhanced thermal smoothing during the early-time imprint stage of the interaction. The target`s kinetic energy and the level of parametric instability growth are shown to remain essentially unchanged from that of a conventionally driven target. {copyright} {ital 1995} {ital The} {ital American} {ital Physical} {ital Society}.